The Selling Season

  It's been said that at the right price, everything's for sale. Maybe it's just me, but lately it seems like prices must be right because there's been a rush of selling.
  Consider the world of card processors just since the start of the year. First, we saw First Data Corp. acquire Concord EFS Inc. As part of the deal, the U.S. Department of Justice forced First Data to sell its 64% interest in the NYCE electronic funds transfer network. Metavante Corp. has presented to First Data and its minority bank owners a $610 million bid for the No. 2 EFT network.
  National City Corp. may sell its big National Processing Inc. merchant-acquiring unit. And last month, processor InterCept Inc. put itself up for possible sale after a proxy fight and not too long after it sold its troublesome iBill subsidiary, which process payments for X-rated Internet sites.
  In the broader financial-services sector, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s acquisition of Bank One Corp. could clear its final hurdle-regulatory approval-any time now. This acquisition will come just a few months after Bank of America Corp. swallowed FleetBoston Financial Corp.
  Meanwhile, retailers continue sell their credit card portfolios. The ultimate example of this trend is Sears, Roebuck and Co.'s sale of its $29 billion store card and MasterCard portfolio to Citigroup Inc. last November.
  It's not just in America, either. Over in Europe, banks are beginning to sell their low-margin merchant-acquiring divisions to third-party processors that have scale and the latest technology, as our cover story on page 22 details.
  Consumers, too, are joining the selling fray by putting their houses up for sale in record or near-record numbers over the last several years. Thank Alan Greenspan for that.
  Which brings me to my last point. You, dear reader, could own this magazine, and more than 50 other financial publications, for the right price. CCM's publisher, Thomson Media, is for sale for a second time by its owner, Toronto-based The Thomson Corp. Thomson Media, which gets most of its revenues from advertising, represents only 2%, or $170 million, of Thomson Corp.'s $7.6 billion in annual revenues. The parent company, whose products include everything from Thomson First Call to electronic databases of court cases, prefers its newer, electronic information services with their steady subscription income instead of print products dependent on highly cyclical advertising revenues.
  Thomson first tried to sell the media group early in 2001, a year when ad revenues throughout the business press fell as the months went on. Then along came Sept. 11. With no acceptable bids, Thomson Corp. canceled the sale and concentrated on spiffing up the group by closing weaker publications and unifying a disparate operational structure that reflected the many acquisitions that had come under Thomson Media's wing over the years.
  Now the ad market is showing renewed signs of life, and, not unexpectedly, Thomson Media is for sale again. So if you're interested, call your friendly Morgan Stanley investment banker. We're a great bunch of folks to work with.