Tuesday, May 04, 1999
Rosenthals shift priorities
Retirement will be full-time job of helping others
BY JOHN ECKBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Helping youngsters learn to read and developing their appreciation for art will replace a passion for self-help publishing in the years to come for philanthropists Lois and Richard H. Rosenthal.
Mr. Rosenthal, 66, announced Monday that his family-owned company, F&W Publications, was for sale.
The asking price?
“The value is going to be what somebody is willing to pay me for it,” Mr. Rosenthal said. The company posted about $65 million in revenues in 1998.
He said he expects a new buyer to take over before 2000, and he authorized broker Veronis, Suhler & Associates, a New York investment bank, to find that buyer or investor.
Mr. Rosenthal said he would retire from publishing but planned to stay busy with charitable causes and by teaching a graduate-level class in editing and publishing at the University of Cincinnati.
Employees were told in three sessions of the family's intentions Monday. The company has been family-owned since 1913 and sells books and magazines to writers, artists, hobbyists and designers.
The company operates five imprints, seven book clubs and 12 special-interest magazines.
Philanthropy in Greater Cincinnati has long been an abiding interest of the family, and that will continue, Mr. Rosenthal promised.
The Lois and Richard Rosenthal Foundation gives $130,000 annually to causes ranging from teaching inner-city elementary school children to read through the foundation's Rosey Reader program in Cincinnati Public Schools to public radio and contemporary art.
He said he hoped that the legacy of his company, a Cincinnati institution that opened its warehouse during the Christmas holidays for a discounted book sale, will be a lasting one.
“The creative spirit is a noble spirit,” he said.
“It's something I was raised with, and I don't know any other way. I hope the legacy of the company will be to show people how to achieve their aspirations — to aspire to some creative activity, and if not to perform better, at least to appreciate art and the creative spirit.”
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