Welcome to a new daily feature we run here at Fantom breaking down the day’s biggest stories in sports finance with commentary from the equities analyst and sports fanatic perspectives. It comes to us via our friends at JohnWallStreet, publisher of a free e-mail newsletter focused on sports related public equities and their subsidiaries. You can sign up here.
Time Inc. (TIME) is working to sell off some of the smaller entities within their portfolio, as the company focuses on developing its core assets; People and Time magazine. Golf Magazine and Golf.com are among the TIME properties for sale, despite both experiencing significant growth over the last year. Recent comScore metrics indicate unique monthly visitors at Golf.com are up 76% YOY (to 3.3 million) with mobile traffic, video consumption and social reach all experiencing a similarly high percentage growth. While the targeted price has not been disclosed, reports indicate a sale could occur by the end of November.
Howie Long-Short: Houlihan Lokey (HLI), a $2.7 billion boutique global investment bank that focuses on corporate finance business, restructuring and financial advisory services, is handling the sale. The company, which has grown revenues from $681 million in ’15 to $872 million in fiscal ’17, seems to have found a niche in the golf industry. HLI successfully negotiated TopGolf’s ‘16 acquisition of the online game World Golf Tour and was hired to steer the sale of The Club Company, a chain of 13 golf clubs in the U.K.
Fan Marino: TIME has announced that effective Jan. 1, it will be decreasing the frequency in which it publishes Sports Illustrated. The company will publish just 27 issues (including the swimsuit edition) in 2018, down from 38 issues this year. I’m disappointed to hear that. While I haven’t been a subscriber for years, SI was a “must read” during the early 90s-mid 00s when I became obsessed with sports. I would flip to the back page to read Rick Reilly’s piece first. Not familiar with Reilly’s work? Here’s a link to 10 memorable “Life of Reilly” pieces, worth checking out.
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