Conde Nast Selling Womens Wear Daily, Fairchild to Penske Media

There’s a new media mogul in town. Jay Penske is buying Women’s Wear Daily, aka WWD, and Fairchild Publications from Conde Nast. The price is said to be $100 million. Penske already owns Variety and a group of websites that includes Deadline.com. Now the 35 year old becomes an overnight media mogul as he adds more prestigious titles to his holdings at Penske Media.

Conde Nast will hold on to W Magazine, which was a spin off from WWD. Conde had bought Fairchild from Disney in 1999 for $650 million. But Conde has its own problems as all print mags struggle with advertising and relevance.The web has significantly destroyed print. Unloading Fairchild’s trade publications is a smart idea for them. And Penske has really developed as an online presence. Adding WWD makes sense as Penske makes  inroads into the fashion world is a natural step.