Free Market-Hater Henry Blodget Wants to Sell 'Business Insider' For....

$100 million!

Michael Wolff reports:

 [I]t probably makes sense to try to figure out what's on Henry's mind as he now attempts to sell Business Insider, the digital business tout and gossip sheet, and prodigious aggregator, started in 2009 by DoubleClick's Kevin Ryan with Blodget as its front man and editor.

Henry is in major drumbeat selling mode — in deal parlance "talking up his book" — greeted by a cluster of strategically admiring pieces in The New Yorker, The New York Times and the Financial Times.

Have I said, people really like Henry? His affability, charm, work ethic and low-key demeanor at nearly every industry cocktail party may have as much to do with his rehabilitation as the fact that he, as a publisher in a tit for tat world, now has considerable leverage with his critics.

As part of his sales initiative, Blodget was very publicly seen having a chat at Balthazar, the downtown restaurant in New York, with Gawker's owner Nick Denton, who is slightly higher up the scale of do-it-yourself Internet publishers — i.e., Gawker gets more traffic and more press. Together, they seemed to fan the flame of each other as potential acquirer and acquiree, although Denton, famous for his one-upmanship, quickly denied the deal he was, briefly, a party to helping make a market for.

Have I said, too, that there are, so far, no real buyers for Business Insider? Zip, nada, or at least that is what Kevin Ryan is sourly telling people. Oh, and they want $100 million. In cash. They insist.

I really need to see this happen.