U2’s Bono buys piece of Forbes magazine

NEW YORK (AP) — Forbes magazine said yesterday that it sold a minority stake to a private equity group that includes U2 singer Bono.

The firm, called Elevation Partners, is buying a stake in a newly formed company called Forbes Media LLC that will include the magazine and also the Web site Forbes.com and other media properties.

The companies did not disclose the amount of the investment or the stake that Elevation Partners is acquiring.

Forbes is unusual among business magazines because it does not have a large corporate backer — Fortune is owned by Time Warner Inc.’s Time Inc. unit, a major magazine publisher, and Business Week is owned by the McGraw Hill Cos., a major educational publisher that also owns the financial services business Standard & Poor’s.

Business magazines, like other print media, have been struggling in recent years as more advertising moves to the Internet.

“This investment by Elevation Partners will now accelerate our pursuit of a number of very exciting opportunities for growth,” said Forbes Chief Executive Steve Forbes, who is also editor in chief of Forbes magazine.

Elevation Partners’ principals include Bono; former Apple Computer Inc. finance chief Fred Anderson; former Blackstone Group senior managing director Bret Pearlman; and Marc Bodnick, a founding principal of Silver Lake Partners.

“The print media business is being transformed by technology, and Forbes has done a brilliant job of adapting its business to the new model,” said Roger McNamee, co-founder of Elevation Partners.