Forbes fired its top editor after discovering that he had accepted a seven-figure payment from a businessman whose company had a lucrative relationship with the magazine.
Randall Lane, Forbes’ chief content officer, received roughly $6 million from RJ Shook, the founder of Shook Research, a company that has worked with Forbes on the magazine’s rankings of the top financial advisers for a decade, according to a New York Times report.
Forbes, the iconic business magazine founded more than a century ago, learned about the payment earlier this year and fired Lane in July, TheWrap reports.
Lane was handed the payment after Shook sold a majority stake in his company to a private equity firm last August, two people familiar with the transaction told the Times.
Why Shook gave Lane such a massive sum of his own money remains unclear. A source close to Lane told the Times that the fired editor viewed the payment as a gift thanking him for advice he had given Shook over the years.
Lane, 58, described the payment as a “gift” in comments to the Times.
“I made a mistake, and I take responsibility for it,” Lane said. “I should have disclosed the gift, and failing to was a serious error in judgment. I deeply regret that, and I lost the job and team I love because of it. None of this changes how I feel about Forbes and the amazing people there.”
Forbes’ employee handbook requires staff to seek permission before engaging in outside business activities and bars them from personally benefiting from the company’s business dealings, according to the Times.
Shook Research, based in Florida, long partnered with Forbes to produce its wealth adviser rankings, interviewing and analyzing financial advisers before turning their rankings over to Forbes for final review and publication.
Forbes, which is best known for its “30 Under 30″ list and its billionaire rankings, says that it and Shook Research do not accept fees from advisers in exchange for ranking placement.
Lane, who served as an editor-at-large of The Daily Beast from 2009 to 2011, became an informal adviser to Shook after the two bonded during a 2013 humanitarian trip to Liberia organized by Forbes 2013, a person familiar with the relationship told the Times.
The payment was uncovered after PPC Enterprises acquired Shook Research and found evidence of the transaction while reviewing internal emails.
Lane disclosed the payment only after Forbes confronted him in July. Kerry Lauerman, Forbes’ executive editor, has replaced Lane on an interim basis.
Forbes and Shook Research did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
