Who Owns Forbes?

Bertie Charles Forbes, a Scottish financial journalist, founded Forbes magazine in New York in 1917 with Walter Drey of the Magazine of Wall Street. The founding concept was a business magazine about people, covering the doers and doings of commerce through profiles rather than abstractions, with the motto "Devoted to Doers and Doings."

Under B.C. Forbes and then his sons Bruce and Malcolm, the magazine grew into the voice of American capitalism. Malcolm Forbes, publisher from 1957 until his death in 1990, turned it into a flamboyant capitalist brand: he launched the Forbes 400 rich list in 1982, published the "Capitalist Tool" tagline, and made the magazine required reading in boardrooms.

The Forbes 400 and later the Forbes World's Billionaires list became the brand's signature products, defining public measurement of wealth. Steve Forbes, Malcolm's son, ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1996 and 2000 while remaining publisher, giving the brand political visibility few media properties carry.

The digital transition was mixed. Forbes.com became one of the largest business sites on the web, but the contributor network model of the 2010s drew criticism for uneven quality. Print circulation declined while the company diversified into licensed international editions, a paid-content brand extensions business including Forbes Marketplace and Forbes Advisor, events, and the 30 Under 30 franchise.

Ownership turned over in 2014 when the Forbes family sold majority control to Integrated Whale Media. Since then the company has operated from Newport in Jersey City, New Jersey, having left its historic Fifth Avenue headquarters. Two failed exit attempts, the 2021-2022 SPAC and the 2023 Russell deal, plus the unconsummated 2024 Koch talks, left IWM still holding the asset it has sought to sell for years.