The New Dumb Money in Digital Media

You know you are in for a treat when someone who just paid a boatload of cash for an asset tells you not to judge the price by “traditional metrics.” That’s what happened this week when Axel Springer paid $343 million for most of Business Insider, at a roughly 9x revenue multiple. Axel Springer Chief Executive Mathias Döpfner told the Wall Street Journal:

“It’s a Silicon Valley deal,” he said. “You may say that you don’t like that on the East Coast, but if you look at some of the Silicon Valley deals, they work out very well. It’s a growth asset.”