Daily Mail sells Elite Daily to Bustle, which becomes Bustle Digital Group
Media company Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) said it sold Elite Daily, a publisher of content for millennials, to Bustle Digital Group, a digital destination for millennial women.
Bustle has acquired Elite Daily from the Daily Mail. / Elite Daily: http://elitedaily.com/about/
DMGT acquired Elite Daily in January 2015 to boost its appeal to younger consumers, but announced it planned to “increase its portfolio focus” in December 2016. That’s also reportedly when the Daily Mail wrote down all of its investment and took a $31m loss on the deal, citing poor performance.
“The sale of [Elite Daily] to [Bustle Digital Group] is another step in delivering a more streamlined group, unlocking value across the portfolio and focusing on our major investment and growth opportunities such as DailyMail.com,” a press release said of the recent sale.
Business Insider reports the cash-and-stock deal “appears to be less than” the roughly $40m the Daily Mail paid in 2015.
According to the release, Bustle Digital Group's focus on branded content and millennials makes it a good fit for Elite Daily. It will also result in a combined reach of 80m unique readers per month at Bustle Digital Group. A Bustle spokesperson confirmed the deal also marks a rebrand to Bustle Digital Group, which includes parenting site Romper in addition to Bustle and Elite Daily.
In a separate release, Bryan Goldberg, chief executive of Bustle Digital Group, said, "Elite Daily is beloved by millions of readers, most of whom are young women, and their highly engaged audience will add further depth to Bustle Digital Group's portfolio. With Bustle as the largest independent website for women, and Romper growing rapidly amongst millennial moms, the acquisition of Elite Daily further extends our demographic leadership. We see a tremendous opportunity to build off of Elite Daily's strong capabilities in video, social, and native advertising."
Meanwhile, it allows DMGT's consumer business, dmg media, to concentrate on its flagship US digital title, DailyMail.com, as well as to expand its editorial offering and maintain audience growth on the web, Snapchat Discover and the DailyMailTV show, which will launch in Fall 2017.
The sale also means DailyMail.com can refocus its US sales and marketing team on commercial partnerships and “MailOnline moves a significant step closer to profitability,” the release said.
DailyMail.com launched in the US as MailOnline in July 2010. It says it is the most-read English language newspaper website in the world with approximately 243m visitors – 85m of which come from the US.