Texans will not get a say in editorial decisions, says media company Meredith, as it hails ‘transformative’ deal to merge magazine stables

Time Inc, struggling owner of some of the world’s most famous magazine brands, was sold on Sunday to its rival Meredith Corporation in a “transformative” $1.8bn deal that was backed by the rightwing billionaire Koch brothers.

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Meredith, which owns a portfolio including Better Homes & Gardens, Family Circle, allrecipes and Shape, will fund the deal with the help of $650m from the Koch brothers, who have said they will take no role at the merged media company.

But former Time employees have expressed grave concerns about their involvement.

Charles and David Koch head a $115bn energy and industrial group, Koch Industries, and are well-known supporters of libertarian causes. They have also poured money into groups denying climate change and attacking unions and workers’ rights.

Their involvement in the deal to buy the publisher of Time, Sports Illustrated, People, Fortune and Entertainment Weekly has raised questions about whether their interest is political.

Profile Who are the Koch brothers? Show Hide The Kochs are billionaire US brothers noted for their control of oil-and-gas giant Koch Industries, the second-largest privately owned US company – and for their anti-regulatory politics. Charles and David Koch (pronounced "coke") head up the $115bn company, and are well known for their quiet financial support of conservative causes, through such groups as Americans for Prosperity, a key player in the Tea Party movement. They share the No 8 spot in Forbes' list of the world's richest people. The brothers inherited the company from their father, Fred Koch – who made his fortune in the 1930s building oil refineries for the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin – and grew it into a multinational giant that now includes a broad array of consumer products, such as paper towels. David Koch, New York City's richest resident (ahead of Rupert Murdoch and former mayor Michael Bloomberg), was the libertarian vice-presidential nominee in 1980. He has also been a major donor to the arts, giving $100m to a prominent New York ballet theater. The billionaire brothers have long sought to influence public opinion on energy and climate change, pouring hundreds of millionsinto universities, non-profits, thinktanks and political campaigns. But this week marked their first foray into publishing when, through their private equity arm, Koch Equity Development, they provided Meredith Corp with a $650m cash boost in its purchase of Time Inc. Photograph: Mark Lennihan/AP

Charles Alexander, a former Time editor, said last week that the purchase was like seeing his “life’s work go down the drain”. Writing in the Nation, Alexander said the problem was not that the Koch brothers are “conservative”. Henry Luce, who co-founded Time in 1923, was conservative too.

The issue, he wrote, was that for decades the Kochs had “financed a campaign of disinformation designed to convince the public and politicians that climate change is nothing to worry about. In fact, any reputable climate scientist will tell you that global warming is the second-greatest danger to the human race, trailing only nuclear weapons.”

Meredith moved to play down the importance of the funding by saying on Sunday night that Koch Equity Development, the brothers’ investment vehicle providing the funding, will not have a seat on the board of the newly merged group and will not influence editorial decisions.

“[Koch Equity Development] will not have a seat on the Meredith board and will have no influence on Meredith’s editorial or managerial operations,” Meredith said in a statement. “KED’s non-controlling, preferred equity investment underscores a strong belief in Meredith’s strength as a business operator, its strategies and its ability to unlock significant value from the Time acquisition.”

Jeff Jarvis, a former Time Inc editor and now director of the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the City University of New York, said he found the Kochs’ involvement “very worrying”.

Time, once one of the world’s most influential magazines, had lost its clout decades ago, he said. “Magazines are over. Only Donald Trump cares about Time now,” he said. “In other circumstances, I would be glad that the magazines had found a backer. There is a need for responsible, fact-based conservative news. But the Kochs are not just conservative, they are the funders of propaganda,” said Jarvis.

David Folkenflik, media correspondent for National Public Radio, said the size of the Kochs’ investment raised questions about their motivation. “There have got to be better investment opportunities,” he said. Folkenflik pointed out that the promises of other media investors – most notably Rupert Murdoch – not to interfere with a publication’s editorial policies had proved hollow.

The Kochs “have gone after journalists they find overly critical”, he said. “To have proprietors who are so hostile to the endeavors of journalism gives you great pause.”

The deal, which was unanimously approved by both boards, is a coup for Meredith, which held unsuccessful talks to buy Time this year and in 2013.

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It will provide news, business and sports brands to add to the Iowa-based publisher’s lifestyle titles. Analysts have said that bulking up on publishing assets could give Meredith the scale required to spin off its broadcasting arm into a standalone company. Combined, the Meredith and Time brands will have a readership of 135 million people and paid circulation of nearly 60m.

Combined, the companies posted $4.8bn in revenue last year. Meredith expects it will save up to $500m in costs in the first two years of operation and plans to “aggressively pay down” debt by 2020.

John Fahey, the Time chairman, said the sale was in the best interests of the company and its shareholders, noting the price represented a 46% premium to the closing price of shares on 15 November, the day prior to media reports about the deal.

Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report