Lupa Systems, the company controlled by the media scion James Murdoch, is in talks to acquire major parts of Vox Media, the parent company of New York magazine and a podcast network with prominent hosts like Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions.
Vox Media has been weighing its future for months, including a sale of all or parts of its business. The sale process has drawn multiple potential suitors, including the media company Versant, and it is still possible Vox Media will sell to another acquirer, take on investment or decide not to sell.
A deal for the company would elevate Mr. Murdoch’s Lupa Systems as a player in U.S. media. The company has a majority stake in Tribeca Enterprises, the parent company of the Tribeca Film Festival, and it has financially backed Bodhi Tree Systems, one of India’s biggest media investors. Quadrivium, the foundation that Mr. Murdoch founded with his wife, Kathryn, has backed The 19th, a nonprofit newsroom focused on gender and politics, and The Bulwark, a so-called “Never Trump” digital media company.
But in the United States, Mr. Murdoch has not been an owner in the news industry, the business that helped make his father, Rupert Murdoch, a billionaire mogul with global influence. The younger Mr. Murdoch is flush with cash after the sale of parts of his family’s media business to Disney and a $3.3 billion settlement with his family that secured control of the family’s trust, which includes Fox News and The Wall Street Journal, in the hands of his father and his brother, Lachlan.
An acquisition of New York magazine would be a coda of sorts for Mr. Murdoch. In 1977, his father bought the magazine’s parent company, which then also owned the Village Voice newspaper, triumphing over a lawsuit filed by its president, Clay Felker. In 1991, Mr. Murdoch sold New York magazine, along with publications including Seventeen and Racing Forum for $650 million.
The deal would be a major change for Vox Media, one of the last privately owned digital publishing ventures that rose to prominence during the digital media boom of the 2010s. Jim Bankoff, Vox Media’s chief executive, grew the company from a sports blog, SB Nation, by cobbling together acquisitions like New York magazine, The Dodo and Recode, the tech site Ms. Swisher co-founded that produced the company’s first podcast.
It was the podcast business that proved to be one of the major growth engines of Vox Media, even as the digital-media industry became challenged.
The Wall Street Journal earlier reported that Lupa Systems was in talks to acquire Vox Media.
Benjamin Mullin reports for The Times on the major companies behind news and entertainment. Contact him securely on Signal at +1 530-961-3223 or at [email protected].
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