Bidness As Unusual

by Paul Flemming

In an announcement that rocked the publishing world, executives of Nations-Journals (parent company of the Springfield Business Journal, with print properties spanning from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., to Jollyville, Texas, and Bucksnort, Tenn., in between) revealed their intentions to merge with MediAmerica, the Left Coast newspaper empire with weekly business publications from Walla Walla, Wash., to Truth or Consequences, N.M.

The gigadeal is estimated to be worth $52 bajillion, depending on how much investors inflate the price of NationsJournal stock in the wake of the announcement.

Reporters, investors and innocent bystanders were held rapt as the media titans laid out their plans to span the country with this merged entity. NationsJournals and MediAmerica, individually the third and fifth largest weekly business journal publishers, respectively, would leapfrog to become the largest business-publication conglomerate of them all, anywhere.

The joined company would have 17.7 million subscribers with CEO, CFO or executive vice president in their titles. Together, the two had 1997 revenues in excess of the gross national product of East Yemen. More than 1,537 weekly business journals are published by the two companies, including Graft & Influence Peddling!, a weekly rolled out in New Orleans by NationsJournals only the day before.

"With this merger, our companies will realize the benefits of a truly national franchise in weekly business journals," said Helen Vetica, chairman of NationsJournals. Vetica announced she will assume the title of potentate for the new company, which will be called The Media.

"Shareholders from coast to coast will benefit from the synergistic chain reaction begun today. To the Department of Justice I say: Take out the control rods of government regulation and let the market-driven electrons collide!"

The merger must pass antitrust muster before it is finalized. Boards of both companies consented to the deal by unanimously rubbing their greedy little hands together.

Vetica, a former second lieutenant in the Indiana National Guard, built Nations-Journals through an aggressive strategy of acquisition that began with Springfield Business Journal in the early 1980s. She has long expressed the grandiose desire to make her publishing company national in scope, buying up paper after paper with the paper wealth of ever higher stock market capitalization of her company.

Vetica, and her MediAmerica counterpart Sam Serif, extolled the virtues of the new behemoth, explaining how economies of scale realized in the amalgamation of their two companies would pay for their flights of fancy.

"Why have two presses when one will do?" Serif said, confirming that 37 percent of staff would be "given the opportunity to pursue occupational options outside of The Media. After all, two presses have two crews to run them. And often those presses are idle three and four hours every day. That's plenty to run another paper with no down time."

And, Vetica hastened to add, readers and advertisers will benefit as well.

"NationsJournal readers in Louisville can now travel freely throughout the country and get the same paper anywhere they go," she said. "And advertisers of ours in New York state may now place buys in Oregon with the confidence that the media outlet will be exactly, exactly the same."

Analysts said Vetica's strategy of running the same design and same story in each of her 868 newspapers, with local names and photos filled in appropriately, would no doubt be followed by the merged company. Previously, MediAmerica staffs were notorious in the industry for idiosyncratic editorial decisions and advertising policies that differed from newspaper to newspaper.

"The NationsJournal culture has proved successful," Vetica said. "Those newcomers to our system will be quickly and effectively assimilated, that is to say, persuaded to see the wisdom of our regime."

Serif said part of his decision to agree to the deal came with the realization that his company lagged woefully in the technological changes sweeping the publishing world.

"Some of our employees were still manually proofreading pages printed out on paper with their own eyes, using reference books," Serif said. "Our readers deserve the convenience and accuracy of computerized spell checking and grammar correction. Their is know weigh to deny a gnu day is donning in hour industry."

Both Serif and Vetica said current subscribers would have their subscriptions honored, and advised that renewals would be processed through a central office that can be reached by dialing 800-PLZ-HOLD. An across-the-board fee increase of $17.95 was announced for subscribers who want their papers delivered.

Company analysts said the deal would be accretive within three quarters of its consummation. Others noted that speculators could make a bundle immediately.

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