A seemingly done deal to sell W magazine stands a chance of falling apart.
Although the Condé Nast glossy only a couple of weeks ago was said to be very near being sold to the operators of design-centric Surface magazine, with papers all but signed, the deal could now be materially different or even fall through, sources now tell WWD.
The hold up was initially thought to be the sale price, with Surface trying to drive down the purported price tag of between $7 million to $8 million. But since a WWD report on the deal and the parties involved, the professional history of Surface chief executive officer Marc Lotenberg and his purported financial backer Magna Entertainment are said to have become an issue for some staffers.
One such is W’s longtime editor in chief Stefano Tonchi, who initially supported the deal but is said to be no longer interested in going forward with a sale to Surface, which has turned off some of his higher-profile staff as well. Unwilling staffers might be welcome to a buyer under different circumstances, but for W, Tonchi in particular is important to the survival of the brand at its current status.
It’s entirely possible that Condé executives, said to be somewhat frustrated at how long it’s taken to sell W , end up selling the magazine to Surface anyway, without all of the staff on board. Some staffers are also thought to be more ambivalent about the potential sale and willing to stay on. Talks on that front are ongoing, as Surface continues to work on financing, but should most of W’s staff come out against the sale, it would very likely put the sale in real jeopardy.
Lotenberg became the ceo of Surface in 2012, when it was sold by Sandow Media in an unannounced deal to Lotenberg and Eric Crown, who co-founded the business IT company Insight Enterprises and in 2014 the magazine was put under Surface Media LLC. Although Sandow only owned Surface for a year, it in 2017 took up a minority stake in the operation through another deal.
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