Meredith Corp. has contacted Time Inc. about a potential merger, according to Alex Sherman at Bloomberg.
Time shares spiked as much 11% in trading when the news hit and wire, and they’re currently up over 4%.
Meredith Corporation, based in Des Moines, Iowa, owns magazines including Better Homes and Gardens and Parents and 14 broadcast TV stations that reach around 12 million US households, according to the company website. Time publishes its namesake magazine Time, as well as Sports Illustrated and Fortune.
The current talks rekindle previous discussions from 2013, when the companies discussed a deal to bring the majority of Time’s US magazine titles under Meredith’s ownership.
The deal was scrapped however. That led to Time (then still owned by Time Warner) spinning off into an independent company.
