Donald Trump Exploring Improbable Ways He Might Buy the New York Times

NY Mag ^ | 1/22/13 | Joe Hagan

[illiac]

Donald Trump has spent a lot of time in the last year trying to make news, first with his birther obsession, and more recently demanding comedian Bill Maher pay him $5 million. (Maher offered the sum for proof Trump wasn’t the “spawn of his mother having sex with an orangutan.” Trump released his own birth certificate and threatened to sue Maher for the money.)

Now Trump is exploring ways to make news in a more literal way: by acquiring the New York Times. According to sources familiar with the situation, Trump has engaged in more than one meeting to discuss how he might buy the Grey Lady. Details of Trump’s strategy remain scant. And it seems unlikely, to say the least, that the Sulzberger family, which controls the company's voting shares, would welcome his offer.

A spokesperson for Trump declined to comment. The Times also declined to comment. The newspaper has long been rumored to be a coveted trophy for acquisitive billionaires, with Mayor Michael Bloomberg commonly mentioned as a potential buyer.

[Tenega]

Might make a real estate play as part of an overall dismemberment. NYT had a small loss on continuing ops in its last reported quarter, on nearly half a billion $$ of revenue. But it is still sitting on substantial midtown Manhattan real estate holdings. In 2009 it sold most of its “condo” rights in its new building and leases back 21 floors with 750,000 sq ft on the cheap with rights to buy back the ownership for $250mm. It also still owns seven floors there with 216,000 rentable sq ft. according to last year’s 10-K. At a going price of about $750/sq ft for Class A office space in Midtown, that would make the NYT HQ building real estate alone worth roughly half a billion $$ net of the buyback. Sell off its newsprint and regional newspaper holdings, 31 acres on Long Island, the Boston Globe and Worcester Telegram, sports and other stuff and you might be able to offer a modest premium to the less than $1.3 billion NYT equity market value. You might even get the Gray Lady herself for just about free, and then could slash costs and make it profitable. I bet Trump has keyed in on family unrest. Somebody wants cash and wants out.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

I believe you may be right.

If he wins the bidding, the NYTimes has a new owner and a (bunch) of new readers.

If he’s shut out, that becomes the issue against the NYT which Trump uses to maximum advantage.

Game on.

[Mike Darancette]

He might be able to get it for $1. Liberal heads will explode.