Conde Nast, a leading name in the publishing industry, is knee-deep in cash, with an eye for digital publications. This top media company owns pretty much every major magazine and TV channel you can think of, including a good chunk of Discovery Communications.  It’s getting rid of shares in Discovery to go towards this new fund, which Andrew Siegel will be heading.  Just today, Conde’s parent company Advance Publications announced that it has brought Siegel, former Yahoo head of corporate development and Mergers & Acquisitions, to its team.

Conde has raised $500 million for him to get started by selling a chunk of preferred stock it owns in cable network Discovery Communications. While it has sold the stake, Advance will still own around 31 per cent of Discovery Communications. The main purpose of hiring Siegel is likely towards increasing the company’s digital publications reach.

“Andrew will be looking at opportunities across the board. We don’t have a short list. I think we see opportunities to take advantage of the audience we’ve created through our strong digital brands,” says Advance exec Steve Newhouse, whose family owns the publisher and who is helping to steer M&A efforts, according to AllThingsD.

The company is also bringing out an assortment of popular magazines as a part of their digital publishing experience. This makes quite clear that Conde is trying to make its digital presence to meet the demand of people for online news and reviews access. Some of the digital magazines for which Conde has made a deal are the iPad versions of Wired, Gourmet and the New Yorker.

So, we can see so much efforts and developments by Conde Nast to compete and establish its realm in online publishing along with the print one. They’ve already become rather critical of the industry’s shift towards the digital realm, calling Murdoch’s plans a waste of time.  This highlights the different avenues that can and will be taken as publishers and consumers approach a more direct channel for mass communications.  When it comes to survival in changing technological times, Conde Nast has typically been quite willing to experiment with new mediums.  This new cash fund is yet another notch in their belt.