'Strong, profitable business': Why Salesforce co-founder Marc Benioff bought Time magazine

Marc Benioff, the billionaire co-founder of Salesforce, and his wife Lynne have bought Time magazine from Meredith Corp which had acquired the magazine only 8 months ago. 

Meredith Corp finalised its purchase of Time Inc, the publisher of People, Sports Illustrated and Fortune magazines, in a $1.84 billion all-cash deal backed by conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch in January this year. 

On Sunday, it was announced that Meredith Corp sold the Time magazine to Benioffs in a US $190 million cash deal. 

While Mr Benioff is one of the four co-founders of Salesforce, a cloud computing pioneer, the couple are purchasing Time personally, and the transaction is unrelated to the company. 

Benioff is currently the chairman and co-CEO of Salesforce.

In an interview with The New York Times, Benioff said he is not going to involved with Time operationally

"I’m not going to get involved operationally. We don’t get operationally involved in our investments. I’m busy enough with my job. They have a great team. It’s a very strong business. Very profitable," he told the Times over texts. 

He said he had been speaking with the Meredith CEO (Tom Harty) since he bought Time Inc. "I was interested in the potential. They are great assets," he said. 

He added that if Meredith hadn't bought Time Inc. this never would have happened. "Meredith is the key player."

An announcement by Meredith said that the Benioffs would not be involved in the day-to-day operations or journalistic decisions at Time and those decisions will continue to be made by Time's current executive leadership team.

"We're pleased to have found such passionate buyers in Marc and Lynne Benioff for the Time brand," Meredith president and CEO Tom Harty said in a statement. "For over 90 years, Time has been at the forefront of the most significant events and impactful stories that shape our global conversation."

Meredith had put four Time Inc publications up for sale in March and negotiations for Fortune, Money and Sports Illustrated are continuing.