Newsmakers at Cannes talk M&A strategy and IPO plans
Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone and Axios senior media reporter Sara Fischer. Photo: Kerry Flynn/Axios
CEOs of major media companies joined Axios' Sara Fischer onstage Monday in Cannes, where they discussed the state of their businesses, including acquisition strategies and plans to go public.
Here are some of the most pertinent highlights for dealmakers from the talks, held at Stagwell Sport Beach.
The New York Times Company CEO Meredith Kopit Levien said the news outlet has "big ambitions" for The Athletic, the sports outlet it acquired last year, and that it will take "some time to get it on a path to profitability."
- "One word that's going to make The Athletic different from ESPN or anything else out there — same word that makes the Times different than everything else out there — so maybe three words: scale of reporting," she said.
- She also addressed the recent layoffs of 18 reporters and reassigned beats to others as it moved away from some local reporting: "The idea was essentially to double down on stories that are really wide, national interest in sports."
OnlyFans CEO Amrapali Gan said they're "very happy being a privately held business." Those remarks come after Axios reported last year that the company held talks with multiple blank check companies about a SPAC deal.
- "We're going to continue growing globally," she said. "Latin America's a massive growth market for us as well as Australia, Canada."
Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff said he thinks Penske Media, which invested $100 million in the digital media company earlier this year, got in at the right time since it "is not going to be possible in the next few years; it was not possible in the last couple of years."
- "Once the ad market does rebound, I think you'll see a pretty quick inflation in those opportunities in the company. But in the meantime, we're just focused on doing great work," he said.
Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone said the formerly publicly traded company, which has been owned by Apollo Global Management for about 18 months, could one day IPO again as "one company" and that could come after more acquisitions.
- "I don't think that the brands we own today are the only brands we need to own when that happens. We can be aggressive in thinking about what else should come into the portfolio," he said. "What we're not going to do is chase traffic, chase clicks."
- "It's a great moment in time right now to be private and to be able to do the things we need to do to get these things in a great spot value-wise."
