M&A Advisor: Regional Publishers Need to be Brand-Focused: Kim Mac Leod defines regional publishing market today as 'Geo Media'
By Jason Fell

With magazine publishers fightin tooth and nail for advertising dollars, and finding themselves up against a slew of new competitors and distribution channels, Regional Media Advisors president Kim Mac Leod says regional publishers need to stop thinking of the print magazine as their main focus and to instead put their brand at the center of their plans, expanding it across as many platforms as makes sense.  Read more...

Closing Day Photos & Highlights from the 2010 GeoDomain Expo in New Orleans
By Ron Jackson

The 2010 GeoDomain Expo completed a successful run Friday night (April 30) at the historic Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans. The final day of the three-day event opened with Ari Bayme and Kim Mac Leod (Regional Media Advisors) conducting a seminar on Finding the Exit Door - Cashing Out Now or Later. They provided valuable tips on partnership and development deals as well as maximizing the value of your site should you decide to put it on the market.  Read more...

City & Regionals Look for New Life in 2010
By Matt Kinsman

“It’s less that one category has done better or worse than individual markets have done better or worse,” says Kim Mac Leod, president of Regional Media Advisors, an M&A company for the regional market. “There are very specific hot spots and cold spots around the U.S.” Mac Leod says she’s seeing more distressed properties on the block. “The market is different not so much in that multiples have declined—which of course they have—but deal structures have changed,” she adds. “There is almost a requirement that deals need to be constructed without the aid of financing—it’s so tight, deals are getting done in spite of the banks. Buyers and sellers are creating deal structures that are much more creative than they’ve had to be in the past. There’s more willingness to mitigate the risk on both sides.” Read more...

Media General Sells Virginia Business
By Jason Fell

“It doesn’t surprise me that the management would want to acquire it, but I am surprised that Media General would let it go,” Regional Media Advisors president Kim Mac Leod told FOLIO:. “Business publications—either journals or magazines, which this one was—often have shared advertisers with newspapers, so there is synergy and leverage that can advantage both the business publication and the newspaper.” Read more...

Magazine M&A: Waiting to Rise from the Dead
By Jason Fell

“We’ve started to see that more buyers have come back to the market,” says Mac Leod, noting the lack of significant deals through the first six months. “Although it is always tough on those sellers facing this kind of distressed situation, this market has shown that there are far more buyers for good but stressed regional publishing companies than we’ve historically seen. I don’t, however, anticipate that the market will be ‘normal’ until the businesses themselves start to see sustainable revenue growth.” Read more...

Smaller CRMA Conference Concludes in New Orleans
By Tony Silber

“On the M&A side, Regional Media Advisors president Kim Mac Leod described a deal climate that she said will be improving in the second half of 2009.” Read more...

WiesnerMedia Acquires Pittsburgh Magazine
By Jason Fell

“Pittsburgh is a great market and it was a magazine that, under its former ownership, never got to realize its full potential,” Regional Media Advisors president Kim Mac Leod told FOLIO:. “Wiesner's group has the back office support to minimize costs, and the regional publishing experience to be able to manage it effectively from afar.” Read more...

With Cuts, Globe Could Become More Attractive to Potential Suitors
By Keith O'Brien and Steven Syre

"If the world's greatest investor says there's no way he would go near a newspaper deal right now," said Mark Young, president of Natick-based Grist Mill Advisors and a financial adviser to media companies, "I think a lot of people pay attention to what he has to say.” Read more...

Boston Ponders Future of Globe
By Keith O'Brien

Mark Young, president of Natick-based Grist Mill Advisors and a financial adviser to media companies, said he would not advise anyone to buy an asset like the Globe until such contracts could be restructured - essentially scrapped or redone. And even then, new ownership would have its hands full. After all, the structural shift in the news business, driven by the Internet and threatening the Globe and media businesses of almost every kind, will be just as real for new owners. Read more...

944 Media Acquires Regional Style Magazine
By Jason Fell

“Acquiring a complementary company like Six Degrees is a smart move for 944," according to Regional Media Advisors president Kim Mac Leod, because it "affords them two opportunities: generate additional revenue from the same market with a different product, and expand the company’s 944 footprint into the markets already being served by the acquired company without the traditional time-to-market delay. Regional publishing companies can maximize their margins by going deeper into existing markets before they expand into new ones, and this permits 944 to do both efficiently.” Read more...