The $50 Million Call

In September 2000, I was sitting in my office when the phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number.

The voice on the other end belonged to a stranger.

“Hello, Fuat. My name is Tom Kemp,” he said. “I’m the CEO of Penton Media. We’re based in Cleveland, Ohio. We believe Penton and SYS-CON Media have strong synergies.”

There it was—synergies. The word always arrives early.

He continued without pause. “The president of Penton Media, David Nussbaum, and I would like to meet you for dinner.”

Before hanging up, he added, “Please write down this phone number for Wilma Jordan. Tell her I gave it to you.”

I called Wilma immediately.

After I explained who I was and how I had gotten her number, she burst out laughing.

“Tom Kemp just bought Duke Communications from David Duke for fifty million dollars in cash,” she said. “We represented David.”

Then she kept going.

“Our company, the Jordan Edmiston Group, will serve as your investment banker. We will represent you in the sale of SYS-CON Media. As a full-service firm, we not only prepare your offering memorandum, reach out to prospective buyers, and negotiate for the highest possible price, but we also provide psychological support services to our clients.”

She paused, then added a story.

“David Duke lost his composure after receiving fifty million dollars in cash from Tom Kemp. He traveled to China in an attempt to rid the world of nuclear weapons. Everyone lost contact with him after he refused to meet with our psychologist.”

Then she laughed again.

Duke Communications was a publishing and media company based in Loveland, Colorado, known for its trade and technology properties. It published titles such as Windows 2000 Magazine, SQL Server Magazine, NEWS/400, and Business Finance, and operated related digital media, email newsletters, websites, and training networks.

Penton Media, by contrast, was a major U.S. business-to-business media company with roots dating back to the early 1900s. It published trade magazines, directories, and electronic information products, produced industry events and conferences, and expanded into digital media services over time. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, under Tom Kemp, Penton pursued an aggressive growth-by-acquisition strategy, buying numerous niche media and events businesses.

In 2000, Penton Media acquired Duke Communications in a strategic move designed to integrate Duke’s strong technology media brands and audience into Penton’s portfolio. The equity purchase agreement was signed on August 29, 2000, between Penton and Duke’s principal owner, David A. Duke, along with associated family trusts. The structure included an initial cash payment, with contemporary reports estimating the total potential value at up to $150 million—approximately $100 million at closing and up to $50 million in contingent earn-outs tied to future performance. The acquisition closed in September 2000.

Just over a year later, the post-9/11 economic downturn hit. Advertising-dependent media and technology sectors were devastated. Performance metrics across the industry collapsed. The contingent earn-outs were never realized, and David Duke walked away from the deal with only fifty million dollars in his pocket.

The word on the street was that Tom Kemp liked round numbers. In his most recent acquisitions, he had paid exactly fifty million dollars each time.

Shortly after our phone call, I drove to New York City and met with Wilma’s team. Richard Mead was assigned to handle our account. We sat down together and reviewed the entire process in detail.

Preparing the offering memorandum would take about six months. For each magazine title we published, we maintained a separate profit-and-loss statement dating back to its launch, with cost accounting detailed down to the individual page. At the time, we were publishing twelve titles, all distributed on major newsstands worldwide and carried in every Borders and Barnes & Noble store across the United States. These individual product P&Ls were rolled up into the overall company P&L and balance sheet.

Wilma’s accountants soon moved into our office. We gave them our main conference room and the keys so they could work undisturbed. They began a thorough audit of our financial records. Several times a day, auditors came into my office with questions only I could answer.

One day, one of them sat down and said, “We’ve noticed that you drive a bulletproof Mercedes S600, Carmen drives an SL500, and Jim Morgan drives a Lexus SUV. But we can’t figure out who’s driving the brand-new white Nissan Altima—a fully customized one with custom leather seats.”

I told him we didn’t have an Altima.

He pointed to the paperwork. “It’s right here on the books. The company is making monthly payments for it.”

I went to Joan, who ran the books. She knew nothing about the Altima. She walked over to the next cubicle to ask Judith, but Judith wasn’t at her desk.

After a few days of investigation, we discovered the truth. Judith, from accounts payable, had leased the car in the company’s name for her own personal use.

We never saw her again.

Through his auditors, Tom Kemp closely monitored the progress of our offering memorandum, and he liked what he saw.

Soon afterward, he called again. We arranged a dinner—just the three of us: Tom Kemp, David Nussbaum, and me—at Tavern on the Green in New York City.

When the waiter came to take our order, he delivered the same joke he’d used before. “Are you gentlemen still friends, or should I bring the steak knives?”

We all laughed.

During dinner, Tom explained that Wilma would share our offering memorandum—often referred to as the “black book,” because the bound copies were presented in black vinyl covers—with a select group of prospective buyers.

“That’s perfectly fine,” he said.

“That’s just how the process works. In the end, we’ll submit the strongest offer to acquire your company.”

By then, the year was drawing to a close. Carmen and I were invited to Wilma’s holiday reception at her Park Avenue apartment. The elevator opened directly into her spacious living room. Among the guests were the Austrian ambassador and his wife. Another couple stood nearby, the husband excitedly describing how he had just purchased two thousand acres in Montana, making him neighbors with Ted Turner.

The preparation of the black book—and the entire process—took considerably longer than we had initially estimated.

* * *

Richard Mead suggested we needed to strengthen our management team for buyer presentations. He recommended hiring someone with a strong accounting background. I met with the candidate at our Montvale, New Jersey, office and brought him on board as Chief Operating Officer. We promptly added his name to the management bios. Grisha Davida was already listed as president of SYS-CON Events.

During the interview, the new COO asked about fringe benefits. I asked what he currently had. He told me he was driving a company car—a Mercedes GLC 300.

I pointed out my own car through the window: a 1985 Honda Civic with 180,000 miles, every corner battered and damaged. He smiled and reminded me that I might need a new car myself.

Mid-interview, I left him in my office, stopped by Joan’s desk, and said, “Please tell him we appreciate the meeting. We’ll get back to him with an offer.”

* * *

I then drove to Prestige Motors on Route 17 in Paramus. I walked in and told the salesman I wanted a black car with a big number in the back. He looked me up and down—cotton sticking out of my jacket collar from my beard, dirty jeans, worn shoes—and assumed I was homeless.

“You can buy any black car in the showroom and glue a big number on it,” he said.

None of the salesmen took me seriously.

I went upstairs and found a man sitting in front of a computer. “Excuse me,” I said. “Can you sell me a car? The salesmen downstairs seem busy.”

“What kind of car?” he asked.

“I’d like a black car with a big number in the back.”

“How about an S500?”

“I saw an S600 on the road. Do you have those?”

He checked the computer. “There’s one coming in next week—a black S600—but it’s bulletproof.”

“Fine,” I said. “Just charge me a fair price.”

I gave him Joan’s phone number. “Please wash it, prepare it, and bring it to my office. Joan will handle the paperwork and payment.”

His name was Doug Tucker. We became friends. Over the years, I bought or leased about a dozen cars from him. He even gave me a nickname—CT.

“What’s CT?” I asked.

He smiled. “Crazy Turk.”

Eventually, the NDAs were signed, and the black books were shipped to approximately two dozen interested companies, including several based in London.

In the process of “strengthening the management team,” I accidentally hired two executives—Cathy Walters and Grisha Davida—to run SYS-CON Events.

When both showed up on Monday morning ready to start work, I had a brief oops moment. Instead of letting either go, I kept them both. We reshuffled offices and split responsibilities. Cathy led conference content. Grisha oversaw sales. In today’s dollars, each earned $376,448 a year.

I never believed in traditional management teams. Until then, I hadn’t hired anyone from the industry. The seventy-two people on our payroll were all local hires. They grew up inside our culture, unburdened by the habits and borrowed thinking people bring from previous jobs.

The idea of strengthening the management team wasn’t mine. It was the investment banker’s.

Once word spread that SYS-CON Media was for sale, the process became educational. Our balance sheet showed sixteen million dollars in cash, which seemed to short-circuit most prospective buyers. They couldn’t reconcile buying a company that actually had money.

One bidder submitted what could only be described as a joke offer: eighteen million dollars, with a note explaining they would “keep the cash.”

Generous.

Our accountant fixed the problem quickly. Going forward, Carmen and I received two hundred thousand dollars each in monthly bonuses. The excess-cash issue vanished overnight.

* * *

While Wilma and Richard Mead were lining up boardroom presentations, we received a call from Advanstar Communications. Advanstar was a major U.S. B2B media and events company with a long history in trade shows, publications, and digital products, later absorbed into UBM’s global events portfolio. Its longtime leader was Bob Krakoff.

Bob Krakoff wanted to meet.

Grisha and Cathy knew him well. I didn’t know Bob Krakoff. I didn’t know Advanstar. And until that moment, I didn’t know they knew me.

Grisha and I left our Montvale office. We occupied the entire ground floor of an A-class building at 135 Chestnut Ridge Road, owned by Mack-Cali. I designed the space myself.

We furnished it with Steelcase ergonomic chairs that cost $1,200 each—about $2,258 in early-2026 dollars. They were the most expensive chairs I could find. I figured that if we were going to spend our lives sitting down, we might as well do it seriously.

As we walked out, Cathy Walters said, “Hey, say hi to Uncle Bob from me.”

I asked how she knew him.

“I ran many trade shows for him,” she said. “I always called him Uncle Bob.”

We arrived at Advanstar’s offices at 641 Lexington Avenue, on the eighth floor. Kerry Gumas, the company’s president reporting to Bob Krakoff, greeted us and walked us to Bob’s corner office.

Bob was in a hurry. The meeting lasted about thirty seconds.

“I hear Tom Kemp wants to buy you,” he said. “I don’t need your black book or your offering memorandum. Just write down your numbers and fax them to my plane. I’m on my way to California. I’ll look them over and fax you back my offer.”

Wilma Jordan advised me against it. She reminded me that she was representing SYS-CON Media and managing the entire process.

And that was that.

Bob Krakoff led Advanstar through a period of significant growth in print media, trade shows, and conferences from the late 1990s into the early 2000s. Under his leadership, the company published dozens of industry magazines and operated professional conferences and expositions worldwide. Recognizing that Advanstar’s portfolio was weak in technology titles, Krakoff made those a priority in his acquisition strategy.

After retiring from Advanstar in 2004, he founded Blantyre Partners and collaborated with The Blackstone Group on business-to-business media investments. He later became president and CEO of Nielsen Business Media.

Bob Krakoff passed away in 2007 at his home in Boston at the age of seventy-one. At the time of his death, he was serving as president and CEO of Nielsen Business Media, which included publications such as Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, and Adweek.

He had been brought out of his second retirement to join Nielsen following the nine-billion-dollar private-equity buyout of VNU Inc. The company was renamed Nielsen Co. the following January. Working closely with Chairman and CEO David Calhoun, Krakoff helped reshape Nielsen into the world’s leading provider of authoritative data and marketing information. Those who worked with him recall that even in his brief tenure, he made substantial and lasting progress.