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Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Bain & Company's Global Private Equity Report 2011
by Hugh MacArthur, Graham Elton, Bill Halloran and Suvir Varma
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REAL DEALS
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Big ideas about business: from our titles Real Business & Real Deals; or from client work for the CBI, Institution of Mechanical Engineers, HSBC, Vodafone...
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REAL DEALS


Real Deals is the independent voice of European private equity, providing essential market intelligence, deal information and insight to Europe’s leading private equity firms, their lawyers, advisors, service providers and LPs.


With one of the largest dedicated editorial teams in European private equity, Real Deals publishes regular sector reports, an online news portal that includes the fully searchable Done Deals archive and Real Deals intelligence of the top GPs in Europe, and organises some of the industry’s most prestigious award ceremonies and conferences.

In addition to the fortnightly print magazine, Real Deals is also available as a digital edition for all subscribers.

Find out how you and your team can benefit from a subscription to Real Deals - contact Steve Walsh on +44 (0) 20 7368 7219 / steve.walsh@realdeals.eu.com


To promote your brand through our magazine, website, news alerts or conferences, contact Melanie Lovegrove on +44 (0) 20 7368 7208 / melanie.lovegrove@realdeals.eu.com

If you have a deal or would like to contact our editorial team, drop us an email: editorial@realdeals.eu.com

Meet the team.

Editorial:

Amy Carroll, Editor

Amy joined Real Deals in 2004 having covered the institutional investment market. She was previously editor of private equity news and research website AltAssets and a reporter for Private Banker International, a Lafferty Group publication. Amy graduated from Birmingham University in 2000.

Dom Tait, Associate Editor

Dom joined Real Deals in August 2008, initially as chief sub-editor. He also oversees web content for the magazine. Dom previously worked as a sub-editor at Business Monitor International.

Brendan Scott, European Editor

Brendan, like Amy, previously worked as the editor of private equity news and research website AltAssets. He joined the Real Deals team in September 2010 to focus on European markets outside of the UK. Brendan completed his NCTJ journalism training in 2007.

James Harris, Reporter

James covered mid-market M&A before joining Real Deals in March 2010. He focuses on venture capital and Iberian private equity. James graduated from Edinburgh University in 2006.

Alice Murray, Reporter

Alice joined the editorial team in August 2010. She focuses on Nordic private equity as well as consumer and retail sector coverage. She also manages the people section, detailing industry moves. Alice graduated from the University of Leeds with a BA in Classical Civilisations.

Sales and Marketing:

Tom Holbourn, Head of Marketing

Tom is responsible for subscriptions, events and website marketing activity across the Real Deals portfolio of products. Tom was previously Senior Marketing Manager at Private Equity International and holds a BA in Politics from the University of Leicester.

Melanie Lovegrove, Advertising Manager

Mel is responsible for all products across the Real Deals portfolio including print, awards, conferences and roundtables. She joined Real Deals in December 2010, having previously managed all products for Financial Sector Technology, a technology magazine, for the past five years.

Steve Walsh, Subscriptions Sales Manager

Steve is responsible for all subscriptions globally for Real Deals. He joined Real Deals in July 2011 after ten years at IFR


Steve also had experience of the Renewable Energy Sector from his time at the

New Energy World Network.
Senior Management:

Publishing Director: Steven Randell

Founder & Editorial Director: Stuart Rock

Founder & Communications Director: Matthew Rock


REAL DEALS


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SPOTLIGHT SHINING ON Sycamore Entertainment Group

So You Want To Be In Movies?

Sycamore Entertainment Group offers investors a piece of the independent film industry in the form of private equity funds.
By Michael S. Fischer



Edward Sylvan says that his 17 years working in investment banking, corporate finance and public company structure prepared him well to transition into film investment. In his earlier career, working in Canada's Beco International, First Marathon Brokerage and Scotia McLeod, he raised high-risk financing for technology companies and mining companies to enable them to execute their business plans.

Today, Sylvan is focused on the niche component of film finance, called prints and advertising, through Sycamore Entertainment Group, which he co-founded in June 2010. P&A involves the making of release prints of films and advertising them through a variety of media.

P&A Funding
According to Sylvan, some 9,000 films are produced domestically every year, but only 5% get distribution, which accounts for $4 billion of revenue—a combination of box office and ancillary sales.

Sycamore's principals created their company after they identified a phenomenon that was happening in the marketplace with the onset of the 2008 credit crisis, says Sylvan. Film studios that had set up independent divisions to make films with budgets in the $15 million to $25 million range withdrew funding after 2008, when these small film projects became unprofitable. Instead, they turned their focus to big budget projects, such as the Spider-Man franchise, with costs running to $100 million to $200 million per film. That in turn left a gaping hole in the $15 million to $25 million budget space, and Sycamore has moved in, though it will also consider marketing and distributing films with smaller budgets.

"We operate in the mid-budget arena, those movies with A-list actors and scripts," says Sylvan. Films in the $15 million to $25 million range, such as this year's Oscar-winning The King's Speech, are usually independently produced adult dramas, with few special effects and little in the way of computer graphics. The stories are driven with high-caliber actors, such as Colin Firth.

A P&A investor helps market a movie. Take a film with a budget of, say, $25 million. The risk to make that movie has been assumed by someone else. Now, it needs an additional $10 million for release prints, the physical negative and other media rented out to exhibitors, and to pay for advertising Advertising includes such things as theatrical trailers, network television, print and radio campaigns, promotions and personal appearance tours.

Most P&A capital is in the form of a short-term loan, and the P&A financer commands between 15% and 20% of the money as interest, plus 5% to 10% of post-box-office revenues into perpetuity. "And that 5% could equal two to three times the P&A money you put in," says Sylvan.

Sycamore is currently raising a P&A investment fund. By the end of the first quarter, it had received commitments of $30 million in equity, according to Sylvan, and was seeking to boost the equity portion to more than $100 million. The fund also has a $70 million revolving line of credit.

P&A funding is required only after a film gets a distribution deal. That money is needed three months prior to the film's theatrical release, and is generally returned three months after the film's release. So the window of the funding being deployed is approximately six months.
There is an extra benefit to P&A investing: The investor is senior in order of repayment. After the distributor is paid, the P&A investor receives his money. Sycamore has gone a step farther by setting itself up as a film distributor as well. "We operate as a hybrid P&A fund-distributor in an effort to control revenues and return to P&A investors," says Sylvan. "The distributor is the first person paid, and is obligated to pay back print and advertising investments immediately."

Film Finance

Historically, movie investors have almost always been brought in to invest on the production equity side of the equation, providing early stage financing that enables a script to be turned into a film, according to Sylvan. But that investment represents the highest risk and longest waiting period for repayment. He says this is not normally articulated to film investors. "They go in on the promise of a great script, stars and promise of lots of box office without understanding how the money is returned," he says.

In fact, a film may never find distribution (recall the 5% rate), and as a result it may never have an opportunity to realize revenue. Moreover, even if the movie does get a distribution deal, the equity investor falls at the very bottom of the recoupment schedule, and so may never get his money back—or may wait a very long time to do so.

Ahead of equity investors in the repayment queue are providers of senior debt, another major source of film financing. Traditional providers of debt such as banks require some form of collateral—perhaps the value of contracts for the sale of distribution rights in different countries—against the money they're advancing and repayment ahead of equity investors. The equity investor has no collateral, and so falls junior to all the collateral holders.

In contrast to the equity investor, the person who enters on the print and advertising side stands at the very top of what Sylvan calls the "recoupment waterfall." That funding is the last money to come into a film production, but it's the first money to be repaid, thus significantly mitigating the risk to that investment.

Other forms of film financing involve tax credits for shooting a movie in a certain domestic or foreign locale and so-called slate financing, whereby investors provide various kinds of financing for a group, or slate, of films in an effort to diversify their risk.

How P&A Works

Sylvan says that each film's marketing and P&A requirements are analyzed project by project. Based on that analysis, Sycamore will tap the expertise of various partners. The two largest monetary outlays go to film print and duplication firms—the "print" portion of P&A activities—and to media buyers—the "advertising" portion of those activities.

Film print and duplication firms duplicate the physical print of the film to be distributed to exhibitors. A feature film scheduled to be released in 500 theaters, for example, would need 500 physical prints of that film. For their part, media buyers purchase advertising time from TV, print and all other media outlets within the scope of the marketing objectives of the specific film project.

Sycamore may also work with other partners in some combination, depending on the exigencies of the particular film project:

•Advertising agencies to assist with the branding of a film project or the permeation of a film project within a specific consumer segment.

•PR agents to work in tandem with Sycamore's advertising mechanism to drive market-specific interest in a film project or in its principal actors as well as generate publicity for the film project itself.

•Other distribution companies with the possible objective of reducing P&A costs, entering into an agreement with a film project that already has a distribution agreement or using the market-specific relationships of another distribution company.

•Editors to develop the trailers needed to market the film project and occasionally to assist in finalizing a cut of the film project, for example, by adjusting the length.

•Sound and color mixers who assist the editors in creating the marketing trailers for the film projects as well as assisting if any finalizing is needed.

•Printers to produce the marketing paraphernalia required to market the film project such as posters and billboards.

•Shipping companies to move the physical print to the exhibitors.

•Theater chains that exhibit the finished film project, such as AMC Entertainment Inc., Regal Entertainment Group and Cinemarks Theatre.

•Box office collection agents such as Fintrac to tabulate, collect and allocate the box office receipts from the exhibitors.

The Fund

The P&A Fund's target investors are institutions and accredited investors, which include high-net-worth investors. The lockup period for investors is one year. After that, the fund will proceed to payout.

But what if the film is a critical or box office bomb? Sylvan says the fact that the P&A investor has put up $10 million (in the example) to market the movie indicates the project has a certain level of awareness in the marketplace. That ensures the film is going to be shown in various venues. Seventy-five percent of a film's revenues, he notes, comes from all of the market that follows the box office.

This includes DVD sales; video on demand such as Netflix, iTunes or Redbox; pay-per-view, cable TV and free TV (networks); airlines, hotels, cruise ships, military installations, prisons and offshore oil rigs; production rebates; and foreign sales.

As to the investor's risk of not being made whole, Sylvan says, "Your risk will be not if, but when. Because the film has a distributor, you're at the top of the recoupment with the actual film itself as collateral. You own all revenues to that picture until you're paid in full. If everything goes right, that will take six months, but it could take longer."

He says any discussion about P&A is one about revenue. The risk is that if the movie does poorly, the recoupment period might be longer than six months, resulting in an opportunity cost with capital not being able to be deployed elsewhere.

Against that is the fact that spending money on P&A drives market interest, he says. And because new players keep entering the market, more revenue streams continue to open up. This happened with the advent of Amazon and Netflix, and the possible entry by Microsoft would create still more demand for content and result in yet more new revenue streams.

Furthermore, Sycamore's P&A fund offers an opportunity for recurring revenue that performs extremely well in down markets. Films historically benefit from increased movie theater attendance during economic downturns. In this sense, the fund is an alternative investment, says Sylvan.

Sycamore

At launch in June 2010, Sylvan and his team took over a publicly traded company called ImaRx Therapeutics Inc. in order to become a reporting issuer to the SEC and FINRA. "As a publicly traded company," he says, "we are able to craft investment products that are tailored and suited to the economy, which private companies are not able to do. If the stock market is up, we can create equity products; if interest rates are hot, create debt products."

In November, the principals changed the company's name to Sycamore Entertainment Group to reflect its business plan. ImaRx no longer exists, says Sylvan.

Sycamore's management team has long experience in marketing and distributing domestic and foreign feature films. Joseph Takats, who serves as senior vice president for marketing, previously worked at After Dark Films and Miramax Films, where he was involved in marketing campaigns for such high profile projects as Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Cinema Paradiso and The English Patient. Chief operations officer Mike Doban was a co-founder of Freestyle Releasing, which distributed The Illusionist and An American Haunting among other films. And Terry Sylvan, Edward Sylvan's brother and the company's co-founder, who serves as executive vice president of corporate communications, formerly held senior executive positions with the advertising companies BBDO and DDB Canada.

The Sycamore team identifies film projects through their extensive relationships with producers and agents and by attending film festivals around the world. Sylvan says Sycamore chooses films based on the story. "It must have a powerful story with international appeal," that is, universal themes such as overcoming adversity (The King's Speech, My Left Foot). Economics are also a factor in deciding which films to work with. He says Sycamore must be able to position a film in the marketplace, and sometimes that may be impossible given budget constraints, for movies with difficult or hard-to-articulate themes.

Sycamore hasn't yet deployed any money. For 2011, it has made one commitment and is in negotiations for two others. "We're expecting to make three deployments of capital by October and are leaving room for two other projects," he says.
 
Ed Sylvan
https://twitter.com/#!/sycamorefilms LA, California
publicly traded (SEGI) Independent film distribution and marketing company, with a focus on Print and Advertising and digital media. http://bit.ly/tXjgm8


Apollo Investment Corporation Completes $45 Million Add-On to Private Placement of Senior Secured Notes
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Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Dealbreaker

Dealbreaker

SPOT LIGHT SHINING ON WALL STREET JOURNAL Editor and Columnist

SPOT LIGHT SHINING ON WALL STREET JOURNAL Editor and Columnist
 JOHN SEELEY

Editor
The Wall Street Journal
New York

John Seeley is the editor of Greater New York, the section of The Wall Street Journal devoted to the New York area. Mr. Seeley joined the paper in December 2009, prior to the section’s launch in April 2010.

Previously, Mr. Seeley was deputy managing editor of the now defunct New York Sun, where he worked in various positions from 2002 to 2008. Prior to that, he served as a freelance editor at BusinessWeek and as staff editor Advertising Age International. From 1997 to 1998 he was an editor at Intelnews in Kiev, Ukraine where he produced a business daily covering the volatile business and political situation in Ukraine. He began his journalism career in Washington, D.C. as a copy editor at Roll Call Newspaper from 1988 to 1991. He then moved on to States News Service where he was a deputy editor from 1991 to 1993.
Mr. Seeley was born in Cheverly, Maryland and attended SUNY Binghamton and the University of Maryland. Mr. Seeley lives in Queens with his wife and son.


S. MITRA KALITA

Senior Deputy Editor
The Wall Street Journal
New York
Mitra Kalita is the senior deputy editor of Greater New York, the section of The Wall Street Journal devoted to the New York area. She reports to John Seeley, the section editor.

Ms. Kalita previously served as the deputy global economics editor at the Journal. She also anchored a weekly column for the Journal called New Global India.

Ms. Kalita was a founding editor and columnist at Mint, a business newspaper in New Delhi. She has reported for the Washington Post, Newsday and the Associated Press on subjects including 9/11, New York City’s economy, outsourcing and the global financial crisis.

She has won several awards for her work and was included in the “Best Business Stories of 2003” and has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, most recently for coverage of the great recession.

She is the author of the award-winning “Suburban Sahibs: Three immigrant families and their passage from India to America.” Her book on the Indian economy will be releases this year by Harper Collins India.

Ms. Kalita was born in Brooklyn, raised in Long Island, Puerto Rico and New Jersey. She currently resided in Jackson Heights, Queens.
WADE LAMBERT

Deputy Editor
The Wall Street Journal
New York
Wade Lambert is a deputy editor for Greater New York, the section of The Wall Street Journal devoted to the New York area. Prior to his current post, Mr. Lambert was a front page editor from 2007 through April 2010.

Mr. Lambert joined the Journal in the New York bureau as a copyreader in 1984 and was named copy editor for the front page of the paper's second section in 1986. He became a law reporter in July 1989 and was named assistant bureau manager, New York law in April 1995. He moved to the paper's spot news desk as deputy editor in May 1996. He then moved to the Weekend Journal in September 1998 as news editor. In 2000 he was named deputy bureau chief in London for the combined Wall Street Journal/Wall Street Journal Europe.

In 1993 Mr. Lambert and Journal law editor, Steve Adler, received an award of merit in the John Peter Zenger Media Awards Competition for their article, "Common Criminals." The article looked at common crimes that even the most law-abiding citizens routinely commit.

Mr. Lambert began his journalism career as a reporter for the Fulton (Mo.) Sun-Gazette in 1979-1980.

Born in Lubbock, Texas, Mr. Lambert earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri at Columbia, graduating first in the journalism school. While at the university, he was a reporting intern at the Killeen (Texas) Daily Herald, a Dow Jones Newspaper Fund editing intern at the Boston Globe and a recipient of the Donald J. Reynolds Award, a scholarship for journalism achievement. He was also a teaching assistant at the university and served as president of the Journalism Student Association.
Mr. Lambert lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

MATTHEW OSHINSKY

News Editor
The Wall Street Journal
New York
Matthew Oshinsky is a news editor for the Greater New York section of the Wall Street Journal.

He joined the paper in February 2010, and oversees the section’s cultural coverage.
Before arriving at the Journal, Mr. Oshinsky spent a year editing and writing for the Arts & Entertainment section at the Newark Star-Ledger. Prior to that, he served in a number of roles for the New York Sun, including Sports Editor from 2004 to 2006 and Popular Culture Editor from 2006 to 2008. As a writer, Mr. Oshinsky has contributed to books published by Harvard University Press and Universe Publishing, and has written for such periodicals as the Daily Beast, the Forward, and the Village Voice.

Mr. Oshinsky was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and raised in Highland Park, New Jersey. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Literature from University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2000 and a Master’s degree from New York University in Journalism in 2003. He lives in Brooklyn.

JAMES A. WHITE

News Editor
The Wall Street Journal
New York
Jim White is a news editor with the Greater New York section of The Wall Street Journal.

Prior to being named to his current position in April 2010, Mr. Whitewas anews editorin the Journal's Health and Science group in New York, where his duties included supervising and writing for the WSJ's Health Blog.Previously he worked as a news editor on the Journal's NewsDesk, a slot editor on the JournalCopy Desk, deputy editor of the Journal’s Media & Marketing groupand as a news editor in the Money & Investing group, where he oversaw mutual-fund coverage andthe Journal's monthly reports onfund investing.

He joined the Journal in August 1981 as a special writer in the New York bureau and became a copy editor on the Spot News Desk in 1983. He transferred to Brussels as a news editor for The Wall Street Journal Europe in March 1985 and was named the European Journal's deputy managing editor in August 1986. He returned to New York in July 1988 as a senior special writer with the Money & Investinggroup and covered institutional investing for the domestic Journal.

In July 1992, Mr. White was appointed to a multi-departmental project team formed to develop a newJournal reporting and editing system. He returned to the New York news bureau in September 1994 as a news editor on the National Desk. In April 1998, he was named deputy managing editor for television news, working with CNBC and responsible for placing Dow Jones news content on the cable network. Dow Jones provides news content to CNBC in the U.S.

Mr. White began his journalism career in 1972 as a reporter for the Albany, N.Y., Knickerbocker News. He became a reporter for United Press International in New York in February 1976 and moved to the New York Daily News as a reporter/editor in 1980.

Born in El Paso, Texas, Mr. White graduated from Seton Hall University in New Jersey with a bachelor's degree in English. He received a master's degree in communications from American University in Washington, D.C., and a certificate in business and economic journalism as a Bagehot Fellow at Columbia University. In 1994, he was certified as a chartered financial analyst.

Mr. White and his wife, Mary Dougal, have a son, Matthew.

MONICA WILLIAMS
News Editor
The Wall Street Journal
New York
Monica Williams is a news editor for Greater New York, the section of The Wall Street Journal devoted to the New York area.
Ms. Williams has been with the Journal since 2006. Previously, she was an assistant metro and education editor for the Cincinnati Enquirer from 2004 to 2006. From 1999 to 2004, she worked as a staff editor in news and on the Sunday magazine at The Boston Globe.
She has also worked as a reporter and copy editor at The Detroit New and The Philadelphia Inquirer.
AARON RUTKOFF

Assistant News Editor
The Wall Street Journal
New York
Aaron Rutkoff is an assistant news editor for The Wall Street Journal’s Greater New York section. Mr. Rutkoff is a lead contributor to the Metropolis blog and an editor of WSJ.com’s New York section. He joined the paper in 2005.

Previously, Mr. Rutkoff edited WSJ.com's homepage, covered political advertising during the 2008 presidential election and wrote a column aboutInternet culture. Before joining The Journal, he was a reporter and editor for the Queens Tribune.

Mr. Rutkoff was born in Highland Park, Illinois and attended Wesleyan University. He lives in Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood with his wife.
NIKKI WALLER

Web Editor
The Wall Street Journal
New York
Nikki Waller is the news editor overseeing Web coverage for Greater New York, the section of The Wall Street Journal devoted to the New York area. She reports to John Seeley, the section editor.

Previously, Ms. Waller was an editor for Wall Street Journal Online, where she has covered travel, breaking news, personal finance, and the human toll of the financial crisis.

Her multimedia projects for WSJ.com include The End of Wall Street, the Journal’s first long-form video documentary project, and the Journal’s mapped travel guides, with destinations and venues picked by local Wall Street Journal bureau staff. She has launched long- and short-term blogs, including the Middle Seat Terminal, which tracks and unpacks the world of air travel, and On the Road in India, which sent a reporter on a two-week auto-rickshaw rally across India.

Before joining the Journal in January 2008, she was a reporter and editor at the Miami Herald, where she covered local government, criminal courts, and special projects, plus created and launched Miami.com, a Herald site about what to do and see in Miami.

Ms. Waller has an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University, and a B.A. from Northwestern University, where she majored in fiction writing and gender studies.

BILL EICHENBERGER

New York Sports Editor
The Wall Street Journal
New York
Bill Eichenberger is the New York sports editor for Greater New York, the section of The Wall Street Journal devoted to the New York area. He supervises, plans, and edits the six-reporter team covering sports in New York City.

Before joining the Journal in March 2010, Mr. Eichenberger was a staff writer for Sporting News from 2008 to 2010. Before that he was variously, sports editor, deputy sports editor and ultimately executive sports editor for Newsday during his tenure there from 1998 to 2007. He’s also covered and edited sports coverage at the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Akron Beacon Journal and the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
Mr. Eichenberger is a winner of multiple awards from the Associated Press Sports Editors and was president of the APSE from 2003 to 2004.
Mr. Eichenberger lives on Long Island with his wife Margaret and has two daughters.

RALPH GARDNER JR.

Senior Special Writer
The Wall Street Journal
New York

Ralph Gardner Jr. is a senior special writer and columnist for Greater New York, the section of The Wall Street Journal devoted to the New York area. His column runs Monday through Friday. He reports on the City and matters ranging from MetroCard swiping techniques to neighborhood tree-plantings.

Mr. Gardner was a writer for the New York Observer from 1992 to 2007 and wrote its “Crime Blotter” column. He was also a frequent contributor at New York Magazine from 1998 to 2006. He has also written for The New York Times, the Daily Beast, the Huffington Post, Spy, Penthouse Magazine, Cosmopolitan, and The New Yorker.

Mr. Gardner is the co-author of “Hay Fever” with Angela Miller published by Wiley in April 2010.
He graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont and lives in Manhattan with his wife and two daughters.

JASON GAY

Columnist
The Wall Street Journal
New York



Jason Gay is a sports columnist for The Wall Street Journal and the Journal’s Greater New York section. Before joining the Journal in 2009, he was a writer and editor at publications including GQ, Rolling Stone and The New York Observer.

He lives in Brooklyn.











MARSHALL HEYMAN

Columnist
The Wall Street Journal
New York
Marshall Heyman is columnist for Greater New York, the section of The Wall Street Journal devoted to the New York area. He writes the “Heard and Scene” column covering society, events, nightlife and the goings on of the various boldface names in Manhattan.

Previously, Mr. Heyman was a Los Angeles-based freelance journalist. After graduating from Princeton University, he began his career at The New Yorker and then went on to edit the Eye Page at Women’s Wear Daily. He was a senior editor W Magazine before moving to Los Angeles to get his Masters in Cinema Studies from UCLA.
He has written for the New Yorker, The New York Times Sunday Styles, Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, Vogue, Teen Vogue, W, Details, Men’s Health, Cosmopolitan, Slate, the New York Observer, In Style and Harper’s Bazaar.

Mr. Heyman lives in Manhattan.


ROSS SCHNEIDERMAN
Reporter
The Wall Street Journal
New York

Ross Schneiderman is the lead writer for The Wall Street Journal’s Metropolis blog. He also writes for Greater New York, the section of the Journal devoted to the New York area.

Before joining the journal in March 2010, Mr. Schneiderman worked as a producer for The New York Times from 2007 to 2009. From 2006 to 2007, he served as a reporter for Forbes.com. Between 2005 and 2006, Mr. Schneiderman was a reporter and researcher for Newsweek, as well as for ESPN The Magazine.

In 2009, Mr. Schneiderman was part of a team that won a Best in Journalism Award from the American Society of Business Editors and Writers for his work on Economix, a New York Times blog. He is also the recipient of a 2006 Headliner Award as part of an ESPN The Magazine team that investigated the history of steroids in baseball.

Mr. Schneiderman received his M.S. in magazine journalism from The Columbia Graduate School of Journalism in 2005. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Boston University with a B.A. in history and comparative social policy in 2004.
He resides in Manhattan.