The National Enquirer, the troubled supermarket tabloid accused of blackmailing Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, has been sold for $100 million, The Post has learned.
The Enquirer’s parent company, American Media, has agreed to sell the paper, along with two smaller supermarket tabloids it owns, to James Cohen, CEO of magazine wholesale distributor Hudson News, Cohen told The Post, confirming an earlier report by the Washington Post.
“It’s a great brand in a declining industry,” Cohen said. “We have to figure out ways to leverage the brand for the future,” he said in a conversation that included talk of cable shows, podcasts and theme parks.
The Post was the first to report that Cohen was the lead bidder after it emerged that the embattled Enquirer was for sale along with smaller tabloids the National Examiner and the Globe.
“The sale of these brands shows their vitality in today’s newsstand marketplace where they continue to generate nearly $30 million in profit annually,” American Media CEO David Pecker said in a press release announcing the deal.
Cohen and Pecker are long-time friends and had joined forces in the 2007 purchase of OK! from the British publisher Northern & Shell for $22 million. American Media bought Cohen out of the deal a year later.
American Media put the papers on the market because its principal owner, Anthony Melchiore’s Chatham Asset Management, had reportedly grown disenchanted with the reporting tactics of the Enquirer, which had it admitting to campaign finance violations tied to the 2016 presidential election.
American Media executives last year admitted that leading up to the election it paid $150,000 in hush money to a former Playboy model who said she had an affair with Donald Trump years earlier — in violation of campaign finance laws.
More recently, the Enquirer has feuded with Amazon chief Jeff Bezos on the tabloid’s reporting of an affair he had with former TV new anchor Lauren Sanchez.
The Post’s Media Ink column had reported on Tuesday that Cohen was the likely buyer after the only other person who had expressed an interest — Paul Pope, heir to National Enquirer founder Generoso Pope, Jr. — said he was dropping his effort to try to buy it back.
Cohen sold Hudson retail stores to private equity firm Advent International in 2008, which merged it into duty-free shop pioneer Dufry. The Hudson Group was later spun off in an IPO in 2018.
Cohen remains involved as one of the largest shareholders and has a seat on the board of directors. He retained 100% control of the Hudson News Group, which trucks magazines from printers to the retail outlets.