ALM Media is sold to prior owner, reportedly at a discount
The company that owns the American Lawyer and the National Law Journal is selling those and other legal publications under the ALM Media umbrella back to their prior owner.
ALM Media will be acquired by an investor consortium led by Wasserstein & Co., the investment company of the late lawyer and deal-maker Bruce Wasserstein, report the New York Times DealBook blog and the Am Law Daily, which is owned by ALM Media.
The private equity firm Apax Partners and the Royal Bank of Scotland are the current owners of ALM Media, which includes more than 350 legal and real-estate publications.
An unidentified source told DealBook that Wasserstein & Co. is acquiring ALM Media for about $417 million. Wasserstein & Co. sold ALM Media to Apax’s Incisive Media for $630 million in 2007. After the economic downturn, Apax retained a 51 percent stake in ALM Media and creditor Royal Bank of Scotland acquired the rest.
The new purchase price represents a discount of about 34 percent from the sale price in 2007.
