The Press: Quiet Deal

In full-page newspaper ads last week, another publisher clamorously announced a deal quietly swung four months ago. The buyer: the Hearst Corp., still (with 14 dailies) one of the largest U.S. newspaper empires. The buy: Avon Publications Inc., publishers of paperback books.

The purchase of Avon was one more signpost along the new path that the Hearst empire has followed since the death of William Randolph Hearst in 1951. In constructing his corporate cat’s cradle, Hearst paid so little attention to the ledger that in 1940 an economist, wading through Hearst’s 94 separate corporations, discovered outstanding debts of $126 million. What Hearst was after was possessions, power and journalistic influence. His successors, a 13-man board of trustees headed by hard-eyed Richard E. Berlin, 65, a onetime Hearst ad salesman, prefer, where possible, to take a profit and let the influence go.

With cold ledger logic, Boss Berlin has dumped unprofitable properties, e.g., the Chicago American in 1956, the International News Service in 1958, and forced idle properties to produce, e.g., by logging Hearst’s 67,000-acre northern California sanctuary, Wyntoon, for an estimated $2.000,000 annual return. Berlin has also invested in new properties whenever the risk looked good. Hearst’s stable of 13 magazines, one of the relatively few consistent moneymakers in the empire, has grown by the addition of Sports Afield (1953) and Popular Mechanics (1958). With Avon (117 new titles last year), Businessman Berlin picked up a growing firm in a growing field.