DONE: Koch Brothers Stick $650 Million Into Acquisition of Time Inc. But...

Meredith Corporation has just announced that it has entered into a binding agreement to acquire all outstanding shares of Time Inc. for $18.50 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at $2.8 billion.

The transaction has been unanimously approved by the Boards of Directors of Meredith and Time Inc., and is expected to close during the first quarter of calendar 2018.

As part of the deal, Meredith has secured $650 million in preferred equity commitment from Koch Equity Development, a Charles and David Koch company.

But here is the kicker, although the brothers will be putting up more than half a billion dollars, they will have no say in the editorial content of the media product put out by the company.

Meredith made this as clear as possible in its press release announcing the acquisition:

KED will not have a seat on the Meredith Board and will have no influence on Meredith's editorial or managerial operations. 

And just to twist the knife further into the libertarian movement. Meredith also reported:

Rothschild, Inc. and Credit Suisse are serving as financial advisors to KED.

In other words, the two brothers, who have a combined net worth of nearly $100 billion, are putting down what amounts to pocket change for them to keep a crony establishment news organization going, where they will have no editorial influence to stop crazed social justice warrior themes.general interventionist themes, etc.

As Donald Trump would say, "Sad."

  -RW