U2 Singer Bono to Buy Law.com?

How's that for a headline? Funny but quite true. From the Reuters story:

"Elevation Partners, the media-focused buyout firm founded by veteran dealmakers and U2 lead singer Bono, is also bidding for ALM, sources say."

And speaking of funny, what's with that $700 million value for a company with "annual cash flow of about $50 million"? ALM may be the 800-lb gorilla of legal news media, but sounds to me like Bono & Co. are in for a Sunday Bloody Sunday. [ok, I was waiting to use that one...]

Don't get me wrong. ALM has made some innovative moves in recent years, especially in getting closer to bloggers and practitioners generally, but there's a lot of old-school overhead there. In this day of easy web publishing, and authors with competing brands, is ALM really worth 14 times annual cash flow? wow.