By Dan McCue
Staff Writer

Bill Settlemyer, founder, owner and publisher of the Charleston Regional Business Journal and its affiliated print and electronic publications, has announced the sale of Setcom Media Inc. to the Brown Publishing Co., a family-owned chain of daily, weekly, niche and business publications based in Ohio.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

“I’m very excited to be involved,” said Roy Brown, Brown Publishing’s president and CEO, in a meeting Jan. 14 with Setcom Media employees. “The business Bill has built is remarkable. We are excited and honored he has chosen us to succeed ownership of his outstanding organization.”

Brown’s company has been traditionally involved in owning daily and weekly general-readership newspapers in Ohio and in other states but that in the past year the focus of Brown Publishing has shifted more toward business publications, he said.

The new company will be called SC Biz News LLC. Settlemyer established the Charleston Regional Business Journal and its parent company, Setcom Media Inc., in 1995. In 2007, the company went statewide with the launch of SCBIZ magazine.

Time to move on

Settlemyer said his reasons for selling the company were twofold.

Having recently turned 64, he believed now was the time to move on to a new phase of his life. Further, he said, for the well-being of a business, it’s important for an entrepreneur to know when to leave the stage gracefully.

“The truth is, under the guidance of Grady Johnson, our management team has achieved wonderful things and they simply no longer need me to guide the way. They and the business are ready to grow on their own,” Settlemyer said.

“On a more personal level, many older friends of my wife Sarah and myself, have told us that if we want to do anything different in life, if we want to travel and be able to visit with friends in other parts of the country, don’t wait another 10 years. Life comes at you fast, and you need to make the time to embrace it.

“As the owner of a business, you can only get so far away from it.”

Although Settlemyer will no longer have any operational responsibilities at the Mount Pleasant-based company, he will remain on as founder and as an op-ed contributor.

“What that means is I’ve sold all the worries, but kept all the fun,” he said.

Johnson, the Business Journal’s publisher, will now hold the title of CEO and publisher, and Steve Fields, the Business Journal’s sales and marketing director, is now vice president of sales.

“Bill has a great team in place led by Grady,” Brown said. “We look forward to working with Bill, Grady and all of the employees to continue the company’s role as the leading business information provider in the state.”

‘Business as usual’

Aside from a change in the company moniker and a few titles, Brown assured the staff, “We will not be making any changes. It’s business as usual.”

Brown Publishing’s purchase of Setcom Media is its third such acquisition of a market-leading business publisher in the past five months.

In September, the company purchased the Des Moines, Iowa-based Business Publications Corp., publisher of the Des Moines Business Record and a variety of other niche and custom publications, and the Fort Worth Business Press of Fort Worth, Texas. Both firms belong to the same trade association as the Charleston Regional Business Journal.

Brown Publishing plans to add two other business publications to its roster of publications by the middle of the year, he said.

Settlemyer approached Brown Publishing after learning of the earlier acquisitions, he said.

“Knowing and respecting the ownership of both the Des Moines and Fort Worth publications, I knew they would only sell to a company of integrity,” he said. “It was also vitally important to me to sell to someone who was already in publishing and was committed to the business journal niche.”

In addition to the Charleston Regional Business Journal, its flagship product, Setcom Media was also the publisher of the bi-monthly news magazine SCBIZ, which circulates statewide, and a variety of supplemental periodicals including Luxury Living, Book of Lists, Philanthropy, Market Facts, Profiles in Business and Event Planning Guide, among others.

The company has also produced a range of popular events aimed at recognizing and celebrating members of the business community, including “The Roaring 20,” “Forty Under 40” and “Health Care Heroes.”

Founded in 1920 by Roy Brown’s grandfather, Ohio Congressman Clarence J. Brown, Brown Publishing is a third-generation family-owned company with headquarters in Blue Ash, Ohio. With the Setcom Media purchase, the company now publishes more than 70 newspapers, news magazines, journals and other publications in Ohio, Texas, Iowa, New York and South Carolina.

In Ohio, the company owns 18 daily newspapers, 28 weekly newspapers and 26 free weeklies, primarily in rural and suburban markets. According to the company’s Web site, it has grown to be one of the largest independent newspaper companies in Ohio, with approximately 750 employees.

During the third quarter of 2007, the company dramatically expanded its presence in Ohio, and also began moving the borders of its home turf for the first time, acquiring Dan’s Papers and other affiliated publications serving the exclusive Hamptons in New York for a reported $20 million.

Roy Brown, whose father, Clarence J. “Bud” Brown Jr., was also a U.S. congressman and whose mother, Joyce Brown, was a concert pianist, assumed the duties of president and CEO of the Brown Publishing Co. on Jan. 1, 2000.

Prior to that, Brown had served as its first general counsel and its chief operating officer and as a member of its board.

Continued local advocacy

Despite Brown Publishing Co.’s deep Ohio roots, he anticipates the Charleston Regional Business Journal will continue to be the strong local advocate of the economic community that it always has been, Settlemyer said.

“Roy Brown has spent the time studying our community and our publication’s role within it, and he understands the importance of local engagement,” Settlemyer said. “The fact is, the management and the staff of the Business Journal will be his local agents, his local representatives.

“It all comes down to delivering what the community needs. That said, remember that the Lowcountry has changed considerably over the years. Probably half if not more of the successful people in our business community are from somewhere else, originally.”

The purchase of the Charleston Regional Business Journal, Brown said, is part of Brown Publishing’s strategic plan to diversify into the business journal market, which he said has top-flight readers and advertisers.

“We feel business journals are focused on the best readers and the best advertisers in any given market,” he said.

Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him directly at dmccue@setcommedia.com. 

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