Pilot to buy Business North Carolina magazine

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The Pilot (Southern Pines, N.C.), which has gradually grown its magazine division from scratch to three regional titles, has agreed to purchase Business North Carolina magazine from Red Hand Media, the Charlotte company that has owned it since 1998.

The deal, expected to close within days, will double the size of the ­division, with revenue of The Pilot's non-newspaper businesses matching that of the twice-weekly paper for the first time.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Founded in 1981, the monthly ­magazine, which has a statewide ­circulation of about 27,500, has won more than 100 national awards and was named the country's best regional business magazine in 2012.

A new Pilot subsidiary, Old North State Magazines LLC, is buying it from David Kinney, Red Hand Media's ­manager and the magazine's editor in chief, and his son, Ben, its publisher.

The magazine comes with "great journalistic integrity," said Pilot Publisher David Woronoff, who worked there from 1991 to 1996 in ­several roles. "I know, trust and respect both David and Ben. We know what we're getting. That familiarity made the negotiations very amicable."

David Kinney, who is 65, will retire. His son will continue as the magazine's publisher, reporting to Woronoff.

"We'd been thinking about my exit strategy for a few years," the elder Kinney said, "and we approached David because we thought this would be the right fit. I've been with BNC almost 30 years. It has become like my child, and you don't hand your child off to just anybody. That's why we didn't shop it around. In a way, we're keeping it in the family."

Indeed, the Kinneys have had a long relationship with The Pilot's owners. David Kinney came to work for the magazine only weeks after the Raleigh-based News and Observer Publishing Co. acquired it in late 1985. Frank Daniels Jr., Woronoff's uncle, was the company's president and publisher of The News & Observer, the newspaper his family owned for 101 years. (He also was an investor when Red Hand Media bought the magazine 13 years later.)

Frank Daniels III was publisher of Business North Carolina from 1987-89. The magazine initially reported to Jack Andrews, who was the N&O's vice president for subsidiaries. Lee Dirks brokered the sale of the company – including the magazine – to the Sacramento, Calif.-based McClatchy newspaper chain in 1995.

"We're very protective of the brand," Ben Kinney said, "so we had to pick the right people. They know this business, this ­magazine and its readers almost as well as we do." He spent nine years at the N&O, seven of those in advertising sales, before going to work for his father in 1999. He became the magazine's general manager in 2002 and its publisher the following year.

"We want to build a franchise around him," Woronoff said of Ben Kinney. "His charge is to grow the business, and we're going to give him the tools to do that. We think he's a first-rate media executive who has what it takes to take Business North Carolina to new heights."

Kinney, 45, said he relishes the opportunity. "This will allow me to be in more of a sales role, so I can promote Business North Carolina to people across the state. We're excited. It's going to be great for our readers and advertisers."

In addition to the newspaper, The Pilot owns three magazines – PineStraw in the Sandhills, O.Henry in Greensboro, and Salt in Wilmington – telephone directories in Moore and Lee counties, and The Country Bookshop in downtown Southern Pines, among other enterprises.

"Now, they will have a statewide footprint to build on," David Kinney noted.

Woronoff said his "world view" was always statewide when he worked for Business North Carolina prior to purchasing The Pilot with his four partners. In less than 20 years, he turned "a little country newspaper" into a statewide media organization.

"With this acquisition, we're realizing that," Woronoff said. "We're at the geographic center of North Carolina, which is the perfect place for the headquarters of a statewide publication. This gives us a better ­platform to launch future projects."

"I think it's a big deal," said Pat Corso, executive director of Moore County Partners in Progress, "because that is North Carolina's business magazine. We haven't had a publishing power here since Golf World left. I'm sure David has a vision to take Business North Carolina to the next level."

He compared the acquisition to First Bank's decision to move its headquarters from Troy to Southern Pines.

"Too many people in this county simply view David as publisher of the ­newspaper," Corso said. "But he's got a very fertile mind in looking at new ideas and new opportunities. He has defied the norm in the publishing industry by growing through and since the recession, proving once again that entrepreneurs never give up."

Pilot staff writer Ted M. Natt Jr. contributed to this report.

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