How Will Magazine Titans Merge? Carefully

As bankers and media executives work out the details of creating a new publicly traded company to house the magazine titles of the Meredith Corporation and the lifestyle titles of Time Inc., employees at both companies have been wondering how executives will take on the harder task of merging two very different corporate cultures.

Meredith’s headquarters in Des Moines have an open floor plan; the executives have their offices on the first floor and favor early-morning meetings. A recent lunch at one of Meredith’s magazines featured kale salad and rosemary-infused cucumber lemonade. Time Inc. executives tend toward lunches at Michael’s, where the dry-aged steak is a highlight, and after-work cocktails at the Lamb’s Club. And then there are the postrecessionary approaches to travel: Meredith’s chief executive turned its corporate jets into shuttles with open seating, while Time Inc. still allows staff members to expense hotel rooms at the Four Seasons.