ZAGATS FOR SALE

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Zagat family have
hired Goldman Sachs to advise them on a possible sale.

     Way before the internet, before the Huffington Post, the Zagats
found a way to profit from what today is called “user generated content” –
creating a publishing empire without actually having to pay writers.  For that alone, they should be overpaid.

 

The New York Times also carried an article about the
possible sale, and had this to say about the company’s value:

“It is unclear how large a price Zagat will attract. While the company is a
worldwide brand, its actual business is much smaller. People briefed on the
company’s finances suggest the company could be valued at more than $200
million, which would still be a drop in the bucket for an Internet company or a
wealthy executive.”

Those are some drops!

But the Times explains, and offers some interesting
tidbits about other humanitarians likely to benefit:

“In 2000, Zagat was valued at more than $100 million when the family sold a
third of the business to an investment group led by General Atlantic Partners,
a private investment firm based in Greenwich, Conn.
The other institutional investors were Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers,
one of Silicon Valley’s best-known venture capital
operations, and Allen & Company, the media investor and adviser.

Nathan Myhrvold, a former chief technology officer of Microsoft, also
invested, as did Nicholas Negroponte,
director of the media laboratory at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and the founder of One Laptop Per Child, and Nancy
Peretsman, an Allen & Company investment banker.”

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