Bloomberg LP, the financial news and data provider founded by New York mayor Mike Bloomberg, is reportedly back in the race to acquire BusinessWeek from the McGraw-Hill Companies.

Bloomberg had previously looked at buying BusinessWeek more than a year ago when McGraw-Hill was looking to hive the business magazine on the quiet, the New York Post (NYP) said in a report.

Bloomberg, based in New York City, had lost at that time as it differed on the valuation of BusinessWeek and also due to the company's inherent convention of developing products in-house.

It is unclear why Bloomberg now has revisited the bidding process at the last minute when the final bids for BusinessWeek are scheduled to be submitted at Evercore Partners on 15 September.

In July, McGraw-Hill went public and said that it was exploring options for BusinessWeek, another way of indicating that the magazine is up for sale. McGraw-Hill had taken the services of investment bank Evercore Partners Inc to handle the sale.

Last week, Terry McGraw, chairman and chief executive officer of McGraw-Hill Cos, said that 93 potential buyers have shown interest in acquiring BusinessWeek magazine.

There were nearly ten parties, who took part in the presentations given by the McGraw-Hill management to prospective buyers, which gave detailed information on the operations of the magazine, said Jon Fine, writing for BusinessWeek.

The other parties interested in acquiring the magazine were Bruce Wasserstein, chairman and CEO of investment services company; Lazard Ltd and owner of New York Magazine; private equity firm ZelnickMedia; Joe Mansueto, founder of Investment researcher Morningstar Inc and private-equity firms OpenGate Capital, Platinum Equity, and Warburg Pincus.

The NYP said that Bloomberg's due diligence team is expected to hear the McGraw-Hill management presentation on Monday.

Although Wasserstein, OpenGate, and ZelnickMedia are still in the race to acquire BusinessWeek, Bloomberg is now seen as the front-runner, if it is serious in acquiring the magazine.

Like nearly all media publications, BusinessWeek has suffered from a decline in advertising sales due to the ongoing recession and with 2008 revenue of $6.36 billion, McGraw-Hill had said earlier that it would restructure its education division as well as its subsidiary, Standard & Poor's.

According to the Publishers Information Bureau, BusinessWeek's advertising sales fell 33 per cent in the first half from a year earlier, to $77.8 million, against an industry-wide drop of 21 per cent.

Its advertising pages shrank nearly 37 per cent and its first half losses are expected to be in nearly $40 million.
But, whoever ends up buying BusinessWeek, will also have to absorb the estimated $40 million in subscription liabilities that would come with the 900,000-circulation weekly.

Subscription liability is the money that BusinessWeek has already taken from subscribers for magazines it has yet to deliver. In accounting parlance, subscription money is considered a liability because if the publishing company cannot deliver the magazines, then it would have to refund the subscribers their money.

Taking the $40 million in subscription liabilities, analysts feel that BusinessWeek may fetch around $35 million.

With 2008 revenues of $5.4 billion and nearly 10,000 employees, Bloomberg provides financial software tools such as analytics and equity trading platform, data services and news to financial companies and organisations around the world through the Bloomberg Terminal.

But its main money-generating company is Bloomberg LP, which provides global news service through television, radio, the internet and printed publications.

The company has hired Norman Pearlstine, a Time Inc and Wall Street Journal veteran to look for ways to get the most out of its media assets and has also hired former NBC News president Andrew Lack to run the company's TV, radio and Web units.