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NYT sell off

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Lollygaggers, Oct 17, 2007.

  1. Lollygaggers

    Lollygaggers Member

    So what's going to be trickle-down effect of this?





    Morgan Stanley Sells Entire New York Times Stake (Update1)

    By Leon Lazaroff

    Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest shareholder in New York Times Co., sold its entire stake today, according to a person briefed on the transaction, sending the stock to its lowest in more than 10 years.

    The person declined to be identified because Morgan Stanley hasn't made the sale public yet. Traders with knowledge of the transaction said Merrill Lynch & Co. sold New York Times stock worth $183 million in a block trade.

    Hassan Elmasry, managing director of Morgan Stanley Investment Management, has unsuccessfully challenged the Sulzberger family's control of New York Times Co. through super- voting shares that give them control over the board. Shareholders owning 42 percent of the company, parent of the namesake newspaper and Boston Globe, withheld support from directors at the publisher's April annual meeting.

    ``This guy has been speaking for a lot of people who are too discreet to speak up and challenge management,'' said Porter Bibb, a managing partner at Mediatech Capital Partners LLC in New York and a former New York Times Co. executive.

    New York Times shares slid 48 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $18.43 at 12:44 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading and fell as low as $18.28, a level not seen since January 1997.

    Next Step

    If Elmasry has sold the stock, ``it's almost a dead certainty there would be a bailout of other institutional holders,'' Bibb said in an interview. ``If that happens and there is a sharp drop in the share price, the Sulzbergers have to sit down and decide whether now is not a good time to take the company private.''

    A spokesman for Elmasry declined to comment. Catherine Mathis, a New York Times spokeswoman, also declined to comment.

    Morgan Stanley held 10.5 million New York Times, or a 7.3 percent stake, as of June 30, making the company the second- largest institutional investor behind T. Rowe Price Group Inc., with a 14 percent stake.

    Family members led by New York Times Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. control the company through their ownership of Class B shares that allow them to appoint nine of the company's 13 directors.

    To contact the reporters on this story: Leon Lazaroff in New York at llazaroff@bloomberg.net
     
  2. Jim Tom Pinch

    Jim Tom Pinch Active Member

    My business sense is nonexistent, but wouldn't it be a good thing to take the company private?
     
  3. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    The problem with taking the company private is that you replace stockholders who don't have voting rights with creditors who sure as hell can tell you, Arthur Sulzberger, what to do.
     
  4. trifectarich

    trifectarich Well-Known Member

    You would doubt the Sulzbergers would go for that, but then again, six months ago you probably would have said the same thing about the Wall Street Journal. So who knows? But the market value of the NYT has dropped by more than 50 percent over the last three years or so, and so there are major bucks involved.
     
  5. hondo

    hondo Well-Known Member

    See .... I told you they gave away too many full-page ads to moveon.
     
  6. Frank_Ridgeway

    Frank_Ridgeway Well-Known Member

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but creditors just need to be paid on time, right? They wouldn't care if your profit margins are 10 percent or 15 percent as long as the loan gets paid?
     
  7. jgmacg

    jgmacg Guest

    A vote of no-confidence in newspapering from Wall Street? Thank God.
     
  8. Rockbottom

    Rockbottom Well-Known Member

    We were obliquely told about this today in a staff meeting. Hmmmm. Privatization, I would figure, would be good for the NYT-owned bitty papers (wink, wink) that turn decent-to-spectacular profit margins, only to be sliced and diced in search of something more.

    But I had to take Macroeconomics twice in college, so what the hell do I know?

    rb
     
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