Posted on 02/24/2008 5:24:56 AM PST by abb
CHICAGO The New York Stock Exchange halted on-the-floor trading of Sun-Times Media Group Inc. (STMG) when its share price opened at $1.00.
Under NYSE regulations, floor trading is stopped whenever a company's stock slips below $1.05 per share. Trading on the Chicago Sun-Times parent company (NYSE: SVN) continued on other platforms, and in after-hours trading late Friday the share price rose to $1.09, up 9 cents or 9%.
In the past 52 weeks STMG -- which in addition to the woes of nearly every big-city publisher has suffered from alleged looting of hundreds of millions by former top executives including Conrad Black, and from circulation fraud at its flagship -- has traded in a range of 85 cents to $6.94 a share.
A spokesperson for STMG could not be reached Saturday. STMG's director of investor relations, Tammy Chase earlier declined to comment on the trading halt when it was first reported by the Chicago Tribune.
Separately Friday, STMG scheduled release of its fourth-quarter 2007 earnings results and a conference call for March 11.
STMG has engaged the investment banker Lazard to assist in a possible sale of the Sun-Times and all or part of the approximately 100 daily and non-dailies it publishes in the Chicago area.
The company had been under pressure by a big minority shareholder, K Capital Partners, to put itself up for sale, and to make big spending cuts. STMG has committed to wringing out $50 million in operating costs by June. It has laid off newsroom, management, and sales employees at the flagship Sun-Times and other papers, and folded some publications.
ping
The Chicago Sun Times is becoming as popular as Air America.
If you are right, this turkey will close. But either way, these people will NEVER admit that they have to close because they are wrong. So don't hold your breath waiting for a "You were right" moment from them. It is always the consumers who are wrong, in their minds.
>> It has laid off newsroom, management, and sales employees at the flagship Sun-Times and other papers, and folded some publications.
They’ve tried everything under the Sun! (pun intended).
Maybe they should try reporting the TRUTH.
...
Nah.
I agree with your prediction. As evidence I cite this from NY Times Executive Editor Bill Keller responding to reader blowback regarding their McCain hit piece:
"And, frankly, I was a little surprised by how few readers saw what was, to us, the larger point of the story. Perhaps here, at the outset of this conversation, is a good point to state as clearly as possible our purpose in publishing…."
Translation: "You readers are not smart enough to grasp how intelligently we write our stories."
Neat, it’s a penny stock now.
This is what happens when liberals are put in charge of a business operation....
I can’t wait for them to take over medicine.
BTW, doesn't the stock get delisted if it trades under a buck for 30 straight days?
This won’t be overnight. It will still take perhaps a couple of years to see if lib owners (or even conservative owners-—the type at Rush’s cocktail parties who want to be “accepted” and seen as “progressive”) will fund losses for their own social status.
Hopefully, this is a preview of what will happen to the stocks of all of the Dinosaur Fishwraps, this year and/or next year.
“We are about ready to test my theory of whether these drive-by media money-losers are simply partisan organs, because if I’m right, it won’t matter if the stock is zero and the paper shows a loss every year-—it will be carried by some corporate parent so the CEO can talk about doing his “civic duty” and how “responsible” he is to the “issues” of the day, even though it “costs him money.”
LS, you may be correct here.
If it happens, we have to bury the corporation or mutual fund company that carries the reeking dead carrion remains of any dinosaur fishwrap with publicity and complaints to the SEC if they are a corporation.
George $oreA$$ will do this for his favorites of these dying bastards.
Another one in ABQ closed over the weekend.
If we actually go into a recession, there will be closings of the dinosaur fishwraps in the areas hit the hardest.
Women, children, illegal aliens and mediots will be hit the hardest and suffer the most.
All during this long downdraft for the media, Rush has been pointing out that they are the only industry that think it a good business practice to overtly insult the intelligence of their customers.
Good thing they got rid of Conrad Black and trumped up some crap litigation to send him to jail. So far as I’m concerned they and all the other shareholders that didn’t stop that travesty can rot.
Conrad Black and wife...
...alleged looting of hundreds of millions by former top executives including Conrad Black...
Also hoping they die a slow and painful financial death, bringing down all lefty stockholders with the fast sinking ship.
This is really moronic. Aside from the question of what they’re doing wrong, all they had to do was arrange a reverse stock split when they started approaching the dollar level.
Now it’s a bit late. They’ve succeeded in damaging themselves further as idiots who don’t know how to run a corporation, let alone a newspaper.
GRRRREAT news! Thanks for posting.
This is a problem of diversification and large companies, though: if a company has 50 sub-units, and only one is a money-losing leftist rag, are you really going to disinvest in all other 49 money-makers if you are a trader? Or are you going to boycott all their other subdivisions if they have one that you disagree with?
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