After a series of layoffs in 2019, BuzzFeed started to diversify its business, selling branded cookware and ramping up its product recommendation section, garnering a commission on each sale through affiliate agreements with Amazon and other companies. “Our model evolved,” Mr. Peretti said in an interview last year.
Mr. Peretti, who has sway over the BuzzFeed board despite owning a minority of shares, had talks about possible mergers with competitors including Vice Media, Group Nine and Vox Media. The idea was to create a digital-media giant, one that would have some leverage over Facebook and Google, platforms that continue to dominate online advertising.
In November, Mr. Peretti orchestrated BuzzFeed’s acquisition of HuffPost, the site he helped found with Arianna Huffington and the investor Kenneth Lerer. This larger version of BuzzFeed is the company that could go public in a SPAC deal. The anticipated public listing could also include a debt sale to raise money that could be used to buy other digital publishers.
SPAC deals, a once arcane Wall Street maneuver, have become more common over the last year. Special purpose acquisition companies, shell corporations that list on a stock exchange, are usually created with the goal of buying a private business and taking it public.
Group Nine, the BuzzFeed rival, has gone a different route. It created a SPAC of its own in December, with the aim of finding a company to acquire before going public.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/23/business/media/buzzfeed-spac-deal.html
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