Forbes Media, based in New York City for almost a century, announced yesterday that the company headquarters is moving to New Jersey. While the announcement was not a total surprise, as Forbes’ lease on their current headquarters building in Greenwich Village expires on December 31 this year, most employees and analysts had assumed the company headquarters would remain located in New York City.
Not abandoning the Big Apple
Yesterday’s announcement notwithstanding, Forbes CEO Mike Perlis made sure everyone understood Forbes was by no means giving up on its 97-year relationship with New York City. He highlighted the fact that Forbes is looking for “strategically located office space in Manhattan to serve as a New York office” in his statement.
New media center in New Jersey
One of the major advantages of moving the HQ to the new New Jersey location (besides the cheaper rent) is the chance to build a cutting-edge 21st-century media center to their own specifications. “The New Jersey venue will give us the opportunity to create a state-of-the-art media center,” Perlis explained in his memo announcing the move. The costs to lease the new headquarters building at 499 Washington Blvd. in Jersey City were not disclosed.
Forbes Media sale still ongoing
The Forbes Media division of the Forbes media empire has been on the market for some time now. According to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal, there are still six bidders involved in the process to buy Forbes Media from the Forbes family and partner Elevation Partners.
The bidders include the German company Axel Springer; Chinese concern Fosun International Ltd.; G2 Whale Capital Group, also located in China; as well as independent bids from two Singapore firms, Spice Global Private Ltd. and the Oxley Group. The sixth group is reported as an American investment firm led by Jack Laschever, the current head of the Forbes conference division.
