Merger Forms New Conglomerate Cox Media Group
Media titan Cox Enterprises Inc. unveiled last December 4 the impending merger of its newspaper, television, and radio divisions. Effective January 2009, the move will create a single entity named Cox Media Group Inc.
The merged corporation will have Sandy Schwartz for president. Schwartz has been with Cox for 23 years.
Privately owned by multibillionaire Anne Cox Chambers, Cox Enterprises was founded in 1898, when her father James Middleton Cox bought the Dayton Evening News. For $26,000, he started an iconic media empire, which he oversaw until his death in 1957.
As the only living progeny of Mr. Cox, Anne Cox Chambers primarily owns the Atlanta-based conglomerate, a moneymaking machine with revenues of over $15 billion. That makes Anne Cox Chambers one of the wealthiest Americans ever; she has been ranked 19th as of 2008 in the Forbes 400. She is currently worth $13 billion.
Now Cox Enterprises publishes The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Dayton Daily News, The Western Star, and Palm Beach Post, among 26 nondaily and 17 daily newspapers across the US.
Newspapers aside, Cox Enterprises is an authority that has Cox Communications, the United States’ third-largest cable TV provider, as its subsidiary. It also owns Manheim Auctions and Cox Auto Trader, the famous automotive retailer. There are currently 100 digital services affiliated with Cox Enterprises.
With sister Barbara Cox Anthony, Chambers inherited the company in 1974, when their brother James Cox Jr. died. The sisters then became co-proprietors of the media giant until Barbara’s death in May 2007.
Born in Ohio in 1919, Anne Cox Chambers became the first female bank director (for Fulton National Bank) in Atlanta in 1973. From 1981 to 1991, she served as Director of The Coca-Cola Company.
Chambers has also involved herself with politics. Chambers was the first woman to join the board of Atlanta’s chamber of commerce. President Jimmy Carter chose her as US Ambassadress to Belgium and she served the post from 1977 to 1981.
Anne and former husband Robert William Chambers have three children, Margaretta, Katharine, and James. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts/Science from New York’s Finch College.
Article Source: Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Official site of Cox Communications.
Forbes profile of Anne Cox.
Resource page for Anne Cox Chambers.