Conde Nast sunk $100 million into Portfolio before it folded last month. Why let all that brand value go to waste? Why not move the whole operation down South, for maximum fall-from-grace effect [UPDATED below]?

Well maybe they'll do just that, John Koblin says!

American City Business Journals, which is operated by Condé Nast parent company Advance Publications, "has expressed real interest in taking it over," according to a source.

But the relaunch wouldn't come out of 4 Times Square: ACBJ is based in Charlotte, N.C.

Ha, no better way to highlight the stunning failure of your glossy nine-figure business magazine launch than to have it end up as a shadow of its former self staffed by commuters in a Charlotte office park! Urgh. But they do say that Portfolio.com's staff would remain in NYC, proving the website was always the most promising part of Portfolio and also proving, by extension, that the whole creation of the magazine was a bad idea.
[NYO. Pic via]

UPDATE: It's official: American City Business Journals is taking over Portfolio.com. No word on the move to NC, though.