People Incorporated, formerly known as IAC, used its appearance at Citi's 2026 Global TMT Conference to outline a corporate rebrand and a portfolio pivot centered on its 26% to 27% stake in MGM Resorts International, ongoing litigation against Google's ad-tech practices, and a strategic shift away from session-based advertising toward subscription and non-session revenue streams.
The company, which announced its name change from IAC to People Incorporated, revealed it made an offer on June 1 to acquire 100% of MGM Resorts. CFO Tim Quinn told conference attendees that the market was undervaluing the company's combined assets. "You take a business that is net neutral today with a lot of borrowing capacity, you add all those sort of sources of cash as well as, most importantly, the ongoing operating business, and you have something that is very healthy that the market is valuing today at zero," Quinn said.
People Inc. disclosed that its non-session-based revenue — encompassing subscriptions, memberships and direct-sales models — now accounts for 44% of total revenue and grew 19% to 20% in the first half of the year. Session-based revenue, representing the remaining 56%, was roughly flat. Revenue per session rose 28% during the quarter. Search-engine traffic as a share of overall visitors has declined sharply, from roughly 65% three years ago to 21% in the most recent year, underscoring the company's push to diversify its audience-revenue mix.
Quinn characterized the company's strategy as entering a "brand era" after successive magazine and digital phases. "The brands are the equity of this business," he said, listing People, Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure, Southern Living, Allrecipes and InStyle among the portfolio's core assets, many with lifespans of 50 to over 100 years. "You can't create brands out of whole cloth sitting here today. It's extremely expensive and highly risky."
Financial figures presented at the conference painted a picture of a company with substantial balance-sheet resources but a depressed valuation. People Inc. holds approximately $1.3 billion in combined cash across its holding and operating companies against roughly $1.4 billion in debt, yielding a current ratio of 3.69. Free cash flow totaled $175 million over the trailing twelve months after debt and taxes. Its shares traded at $38.99 as of September 4, with a P/E ratio of 6.63 — described as among the lowest in the media sector. The company targets reducing corporate overhead to about $45 million by the first quarter of next year.
The business also highlighted its product developments. MyRecipes, originally launched as a web experience in June 2023, migrated to a subscription app model featuring meal planning, prep tools and social features. The app reached 5 million registered users within 14 months and had been relaunched just three weeks before the conference. Southern Living Insiders offers a membership tier with access to historical content, recipe vaults and merchandise. A subscription product for the People app was scheduled for launch later in the year.
On the AI front, the company confirmed its editorial content remains 100% human-created, with artificial-intelligence tools confined to workflow support, research and automation tasks such as ad targeting and marketing. Quinn pushed back against the notion that AI firms should not compensate content creators. "Content is a critical raw material to AI, full stop," he said. "AI can't live without content. Yet for some reason there's a position amongst some that they do not have to pay for that content. We think that that is wrong."
People Inc. reported that litigation related to Google's ad-tech monopoly could generate nine figures in cash recovery. It is also in the process of simplifying its portfolio, potentially selling Vivian Health and The Daily Beast and preparing Turo for an initial public offering. The company has grown revenue for 11 consecutive quarters and set a long-term annual revenue-growth target of about 10%.
