Jim Bankoff, President and CEO of Vox Media
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | beautiful pictures
Vox Media is in advanced talks to acquire digital media company Group Nine, according to internal memos submitted by both companies and obtained by CNBC.
Vox CEO Jim Bankoff and Group Nine CEO Ben Lerer emailed employees after The Wall Street Journal first time reporting the news in Monday. Group Nine owns digital media assets, including PopSugar, NowThis, Thrillist, and Dodo.
Group Nine has been holding face-to-face merger talks with Vox, BuzzFeed and other digital media companies for years, CNBC reported last week. Vox and Group Nine are both looking for additional scale as they try to better compete with Google and Facebook for advertising money.
Bankoff told its employees that the deal has not been signed but is expected to be short-lived and close in early 2022. Lerer will sit on the board seat at Vox. Vox publications, including New York Magazine, Verge, Eater, Curbed, Vox and SB Nation, will remain intact following the acquisition, the memo said.
According to a person familiar with the matter, a person familiar with the matter requested anonymity because the terms of the agreement are private.
Representatives from Vox and Group Nine did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Bankoff said his company has no plans to go public. However, earlier this year, Group Nine established a special purpose buyout company that can be used to list shares to the public through a merger. SPAC is not used for the deal, but the entity won’t go away and the combined company can use it later, another person said.
BuzzFeed went public last week via SPAC, and the stock has since plummeted. BuzzFeed are also looking to set up digital media companies when the industry merges.
