Incisive Media to buy American Lawyer

The Baltimore Sun

Bruce Wasserstein, the chairman of Lazard Ltd., has agreed to sell The American Lawyer magazine and the rest of his legal and real estate publishing business to Incisive Media PLC of the United Kingdom for $630 million.

Wasserstein, a former lawyer who built his career advising on acquisitions, and investors paid $63 million for American Lawyer and $200 million for National Law Publishing Co. in 1997 to form the company that is now ALM. Incisive said in a statement yesterday that it will pay cash for ALM, which publishes 33 U.S. magazines and newspapers for the legal and property professions.

The purchase will almost double the size of Incisive, owner of Legal Week, and help the company expand in the United States with niche publications that have been less affected by readers shifting to the Internet. The deal is the fourth for the London-based company since it was acquired by Apax Partners Worldwide LLP in December.

"Having a greater scale will allow us to launch conferences, new magazine brands and build up Web properties," Tim Weller, chief executive officer of Incisive, said in an interview. He said the acquisition of ALM, which adds $200 million in annual sales, will be "transformational."

About 55 percent of ALM's revenue comes from print publications, which win advertisers because legal professionals still prefer receiving information in that form, Weller said.

ALM also runs trade shows and Web sites including law.com. The company was formed by U.S. Equity Partners LP, a private equity fund sponsored by Wasserstein & Co. The firm, which manages $2 billion of assets, is owned by Bruce Wasserstein, 59, and other senior members of the firm, according to its Web site.

"It was an opportune time to look at options for the company" based on market conditions and the company's performance, said Lee Feldman, a spokesman for Wasserstein & Co. Investors will receive a 300 percent return on their investment a decade ago, he said.

Wasserstein wasn't available to comment, Feldman said. He declined to say how Wasserstein will use the proceeds from the deal.

ALM had free cash flow of more than $10 million, or about 3 percent of total debt, at the end of December, Moody's Investors Service said in a March report. The company's flagship publication, American Lawyer, had a monthly circulation of 17,000 as of December, Feldman said.

"It's the major daily and weekly outlet for lawyers and professors and people who care about the legal business in the U.S.," said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia, who has contributed editorials to the magazine. "I hope the editorial and reporting integrity will be maintained."

After buying American Lawyer, Wasserstein expanded into other media with the creation of The Deal, which tracks mergers and acquisitions, and the purchase of New York magazine. Those publications aren't part of ALM.

Wasserstein rose to the top ranks of merger advisers during the 1980s, where he helped run investment banking at First Boston Corp., now part of Credit Suisse Group. In 1988, he left with Joseph Perella to found Wasserstein, Perella & Co., an advisory firm that he sold to Germany's Dresdner Bank AG for $1.56 billion in January 2001.

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