Bloomberg completes acquisition of BusinessWeek magazine from McGraw-Hill

Bloomberg completes purchase of BusinessWeek

NEW YORK — Bloomberg LP said Tuesday it has completed its purchase of McGraw-Hill’s BusinessWeek magazine.

The financial data and news company had agreed to buy the business magazine in October.

McGraw-Hill Cos. has said that it was getting $5 million in cash and that Bloomberg was assuming an unspecified amount of BusinessWeek’s liabilities.

The purchase had been expected to close by the end of the year.

McGraw-Hill put BusinessWeek up for auction in July — the magazine has been reeling from the weak economy and the shift in media consumption that has pushed more advertising onto the Internet. BusinessWeek has also been trying to determine how it can stay relevant as a weekly magazine while readers can devour financial and corporate news online at any time.

Bloomberg hopes the acquisition will help it reach a wider audience than it does with its roughly 300,000 electronic terminals, which are located in the offices of all types of financial service professionals.

A link to Business Week can now also be found on the front page of Bloomberg.com.

The company is also bringing in a new top editor. Bloomberg said last month that Time magazine deputy managing editor Josh Tyrangiel would become BusinessWeek’s new editor. Stephen Adler has been BusinessWeek’s editor for four years.

McGraw-Hill said it still expects to report a $9.3 million pretax gain from the sale, or about 2 cents per share, in the fourth quarter.

McGraw-Hill shares rose 36 cents, or 1.2 percent, to close at $30.32 Tuesday.