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Keith J. Kelly

Keith J. Kelly

 Media
media ink

BuzzFeed layoffs reignite speculation of potential sale or merger

By
Keith J. Kelly
Published Jan. 24, 2019
Updated Jan. 24, 2019, 11:18 p.m. ET

BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti’s memo outlining a 15 percent staff cut at the company has reignited speculation that the company is prettying itself up for a sale or merger.

Among the most likely targets would be Group Nine, owner of Thrillist, the Dodo and other sites, which in 2016 snagged a $100 million investment from Discovery. At that time, Thrillist CEO Ben Lerer was elevated to CEO of Group Nine.

BuzzFeed, which has investors from NBCUniversal, Andreessen Horowitz and Hearst, counts Ken Lerer, father of Ben Lerer, as its chairman.

A BuzzFeed spokesman declined to comment on talks with any parties. Group Nine did not return calls.

Peretti himself, in an interview with the New York Times in December, said that he thought a combination of the top five or six digital publishers would solve a lot of the problems in the bid to get more ad revenue from Facebook and Google.

“You have Vice and Vox Media and Group Nine and Refinery,” Peretti said in an interview.

“Having some bigger companies that actually care about the quality of the content feels like something that’s very valuable,” he said.

BuzzFeed, which made its fortune running native advertising, has more recently been branching out with shows on Netflix, Twitter and Facebook, and has even run banner ads, which it once avoided.

Revenue in 2018 surpassed $300 million, but a source said it was still losing money.

BuzzFeed is also dealing with fallout from a story last Thursday that said President Trump had instructed his onetime fixer and lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about talks with Trump and Russians about potentially building a Trump tower in Moscow.

Special counsel Robert Mueller said that the report was inaccurate but declined further speculation. BuzzFeed News Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith said he was standing by the story.