New Man for Curtis

Attempting to reverse its sliding fortunes, the Curtis Publishing Co. last week got down to business by electing a new president: Martin Ackerman, 36.

Aside from the recent acquisition of Popular Library, a paperback book company, Ackerman has had no publishing experience. His business is the salvation of troubled firms. A native of Rochester and a graduate of Syracuse University and Rutgers Law School, he became a partner in the New York City law firm of Cooper, Ostrin, De Varco & Ackerman in 1957, specializing in mergers and acquisitions. In 1962, he decided to try his own hand at the business. He bought controlling interest in Perfect Photo Inc., later merged it with three other firms: United Whelan Corp., a drugstore chain; Hudson National Inc., a mail-order firm; and Equality Plastics Inc., a consumer-products-distribution company. The profit-making result was Perfect Film & Chemical Corp., a New York company engaged in film processing and mail-order sales of drugs and vitamins. Ackerman remains Perfect Film's president and board chairman; for the time being, to illustrate his dedication to his job, he will serve Curtis as a non-salaried executive with no stock and no options to buy any.

Post Possibilities. Ackerman was called in by Curtis because it had been unable to meet its bank-loan payments in March. To get an extension of its $12,170,000 loan from its creditors, chiefly the First National Bank of Boston, Curtis had to agree to a change in management and a definite plan to revitalize the company. Ackerman, who had been closely following Curtis' troubles, offered both of these. In addition, he is lending the company $5,000,000 for operating expenses. As a result, the banks agreed to extend the Curtis loan, much of which will be paid off when the company completes the sale of its Philadelphia headquarters to John W. Merriam, a Philadelphia real estate developer, for $7,300,000; Curtis will then lease back for five years the 50% of the building it currently occupies.

Ackerman has not yet said publicly what his plans are, but he has indicated that he plans to deal decisively with the company's biggest money loser, the Saturday Evening Post. One course of action he has discussed with Curtis is discontinuing the magazine; another possibility is removing it from competition with LIFE and Look and aiming it at a less urban, less sophisticated audience. Its present 6,800,000 circulation could then fall to a more comfortable level. With the Post problem settled, Curtis' outlook would brighten markedly. The company's other major magazines--Ladies' Home Journal, Holiday, American Home and Jack and Jill--are in much healthier condition.

Merger Question. But other areas of Curtis are due for change. "The company is too fully integrated," says Ackerman. "It is one of the few publishing firms that starts with trees and ends up with magazines. There is little flexibility among the divisions as it currently operates." Conspicuously outmoded is the 80-year-old paper mill in Johnsonburg, Pa., which supplies Curtis publications with 85% of their paper, much of which could be bought more cheaply elsewhere. Moreover, the plant is presently capable of producing only heavyweight paper; to modernize it might cost $5,000,000. By using a lighter stock it is estimated that Curtis could save $2,000,000 a year in postage alone.

Another question facing Ackerman is whether to merge Perfect Film with Curtis. Curtis has a tax-loss carryover of $57 million, of which $13.5 million expires this year. Perfect Film, which earned $2,500,000 last year on gross sales of $58.2 million, could scarcely use the entire tax benefit. But merger is a natural temptation.

Middle Course. Despite recurrent reports of the Post's imminent demise, staffers have kept up their spirits. "If we paid attention to all the rumors," says Chief Articles Editor Don McKinney, "we would all have become basket cases years ago." Along with standard froth on show-biz stars and a slim ration of fiction, the biweekly has recently run some trenchant looks at the Mafia operations and at the "blockbusting" tactics of real estate developers. Editor Bill Emerson Jr., 45, has tried to steer a middle course somewhere between the homely pieties of the old Post and the shock tactics of the Clay Blair Jr. regime of 1962-64.

Visiting Curtis sales offices in California last week, Ackerman found staff morale "very good," except for a sense of remoteness. The employees, he reports, seemed startled when he showed up. "It was as if they hadn't seen anyone from Curtis in 15 years."

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