Thursday, November 10, 2005

PlanetOut, Inc acquires publisher of Advocate, Out magazines

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According to an article published by the Washington Post, PlanetOut, Inc. is well on its way to becoming the gay media conglomerate of the new century. PlanetOut, a publicly traded company (under the name LGBT), announced on Wednesday that it had acquired LPI Media, Inc. which owns the Advocate, Out Magazine, and other publications and companies. According to the article:
PlanetOut, which is a publicly-traded company, announced it has paid $24 million in cash, approximately $7.1 million in seller-financed debt and will reimburse certain prepaid and other expenses totaling approximately $1 million for LPI Media. “This transaction will further advance our strategy of building a far-reaching media and entertainment company which aggregates the largest gay and lesbian media brands,” Lowell Selvin, chairman and chief executive officer, PlanetOut Inc., said in a news release announcing the deal. This was not the first attempt by PlanetOut to acquire LPI. In March 2000, PlanetOut released a letter of intent to merge with Liberation Publications Inc., but in March 2001, PlanetOut announced that the merge was canceled, due to the downturn in the Internet market. In addition to the Advocate and Out, LPI Media also publishes gay-themed books through Alyson Publications, and gay adult magazines including Men and Freshmen through SpecPub, Inc.