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 21 Most Intriguing: Charles McCurdy
CEO, Apprise MediaSometimes, media deals have an obvious buyer that syncs up perfectly with an obvious seller. Other times, it’s more like trying to collide subatomic particles. But most times, it falls somewhere in between—which happens to be the sweet spot for veteran wheelers like Charlie McCurdy. Wherever he’s gone, he’s been able to find and close over 50% of the deals he bids on. That track record encompasses a 14-year tenure at Primedia, where, as president and director, he bid on 250 companies and closed 130 deals.McCurdy is no longer at Primedia under legendary deal man Bill Reilly; now he is running his own show as CEO of Apprise Media, which he founded in 2004 with $200 million in funding from Spectrum Equity Investors. Fast-forward to 2007: McCurdy has built two successful media companies, Canon Communications and Apprise Enthusiast Media. Though he has been involved in several successful (and several unsuccessful) bids this year, McCurdy isn’t done—not by a long shot. Deal speculation surrounding McCurdy has been so intense that press reports erroneously named him as a late-stage bidder in the Penton auction only days before Wasserstein & Co. was announced as the winner, and weeks after Apprise had stopped looking at the company. But, for all his big deals and power plays, McCurdy knows from decades of experience that this business boils down to people: “When you buy a company, it’s first important to let its employees know what this means for their benefit programs. In the first 10 minutes of the meeting, you tell them why the program you are offering has comparable economic value and life-quality value to what they had before. Generally, when a company is sold by one large company to another, the sold company is an operation that wasn’t core. The group that bought it generally sees it as core and central, and it’s important to convey to employees that they are now in a situation of opportunity rather than marginality.” Performance StatsGrowing Niche Media CompaniesRevenues (indexed) by company (year 1 indexed to 100, years 2-5 = revenues * X/100) Year from Inception Company 1 2 3 4 5 Primedia Enthusiast 100.0 150.0 200.0 280.0 360.0 Apprise Enthusiast 100.0 125.0 Primedia B2B 100.0 130.0 126.0 156.0 200.0 Apprise B2B (Canon) 100.0 116.7 133.4 Career Deal Activity Bids Closed Avg Macmillan (1985-1988) 27 15 0.556 Primedia (1989 - 2003) 250 130 0.520 Apprise Media (2004 - 2007) 15 8 0.533 Career Totals 292 153 0.524 Select Career HighlightsPrimedia (1989 - 2003)
mInsightEver see the made-for-TV movie Mrs. Harris? It tells the story of the murder of Dr. Tarnower, author of The Scarsdale Diet, a best-selling diet book from the early ‘80s. Tarnower was shot by his long-time lover, Jean Harris, a week after submitting to McCurdy, who was at that time at Macmillen Inc., a manuscript for his follow-up diet book: Nutrition for Longevity.IN THE CURRENT ISSUE OF MIN MAGAZINE
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