Tronc buys NY Daily News for.....$1

And who knows how much the Daily News has in the way of pension obligations?

I'm acquainted with several former Daily News folks down here who have retired to Boca Raton, and they're living rather cushy lifestyles.

 

Poynter had a decent explainer this morning:

Though the New York Daily News was sold for just $1 on Sunday, the new owner, Tronc, will inherit millions of dollars in cash as part of the deal.

The $8 million in "working capital" is part of a deal that includes significant costs, though: About $26.5 million in pension obligations, of which $2 million must be paid annually; $18.7 million in outstanding debt mostly tied to workers’ compensation and auto liabilities; and another $16 million in workers’ compensation and automobile insurance liabilities.

The details were spelled out in a recent disclosure filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which also lists big-ticket assets that the previous owner left behind for Tronc. Most notably, Tronc will receive the newspaper’s printing plant, in which $150 million was invested a decade ago, in addition to the $8 million in "working capital."​

Tronc inherits $8 million cash prize in Daily News deal

 

So adding up those liabilities and subtracting the $8 million in working capital, I get a total of $53.2 million for the NYDN, the printing plant and the real estate. That sounds like not a lot of money for that. Given the value of the real estate and the printing plant, I'm wondering if the cost of the Daily News might have been covered by that $1.

 

Didn't Tribune own the News in the 1990s? It did, when I worked there.

 

Yes. The Tribune company controlled it from its founding in 1919 until 1991. Then it was sold to Robert Maxwell, who went broke, and then to Zuckerman.

 

In related news, the Anchorage Dispatch News (recently renamed; was the Anchorage Daily News) has been sold for $1 million. Three years ago, it was purchased for $34 million

Judge approves sale of Alaska's largest newspaper

 

Is this the only newspaper in Anchorage? Anchorage has a metro population of 400,000. I have not heard of a monoply newspaper

 

Lancey: I believe it is. Sometime in the 1990s, the McClatchy paper (Anchorage Daily News) bought out a smaller, afternoon daily paper. For awhile — through much of the 2000s, I believe — the ADN carried two editorial pages, its own and the bought-out paper's (the bought-out paper was considered more conservative. Sorry I can't remember its name).

So other than an alternative weekly, I think the ADN is the only daily print publication in Anchorage.

The fact it's only worth $1 million says a lot about our industry.

 

Layoffs hit Alaska Dispatch News in wake of bankruptcy sale

 

The link says the paper is losing $500,000 a month and had 212 employees. Which seems to be a lot of employees for a market the size of Anchorage. The previous publisher was the wife of a New York hedge fund billionaire, It is apparent she could not manage. Good luck to those negatively affected and I hope the paper makes it.

 

A good read in the New Yorker about how a billionaire buying a newspaper (as happened in Anchorage, Alaska) won't magically change the industry's long-term problems:

Journalism’s Broken Business Model Won’t Be Solved by Billionaires

Some of the grim details: