NY Times Co to Sell Regional Newspapers for $143 Million

Reuters Via Yahoo News ^ | December 27, 2011 | Soham Chatterjee

[lbryce]

The New York Times Co said it will sell 16 regional newspapers spread across the U.S. Southeast and California to Halifax Media Holdings for $143 million in cash as it looks to cut costs and focus on its most important papers and their websites.

*SNIP* *SNIP*

"I think that it's toward the low end of what we expected. I was expecting $150-$200 million," Evercore Partners analyst Douglas Arthur told Reuters.

"What it implies is that margins on regional newspapers were not as high as we thought, but the underlying profitability of the main New York Times is higher."

The analyst, however, said pension obligation will stay with the company and that could be one of the uses of the proceeds.

The group to be hived off has a weekday circulation of about 430,000, with newspapers such as Sarasota Herald-Tribune, The Ledger, in Florida; Herald-Journal in South Carolina; and The Press Democrat in California in its stable.

Last week, the Times Co said it will sell its regional newspapers days after Chief Executive Janet Robinson announced her sudden retirement.

The group's revenue -- more than a tenth of Times Co's overall sales -- fell about 7 percent to $190 million in the first nine months of this year.

"These newspapers have been a drag on overall results due to heavier reliance on local advertising which lags national advertising growth," Morningstar's Joscelyn Mackay said.

"Without these papers, the firm will be able to focus on its flagship The New York Times and monetize its digital content."

Halifax Media owns The Daytona-Beach News Journal, among other papers and media businesses across the south.

Times Co shares, which have lost a fifth of their value this year, closed at $7.76 on Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.

[lbryce]

"Without these papers, the firm will be able to focus on its flagship The New York Times and monetize its digital content."
It's Rock solid business strategy to liquidate losing businesses unloaded at firesale prices, recycle it into the same money-losing soon to be extinct business model you sold the businesses for in the first place.

Times Co shares, which have lost a fifth of their value this year, closed at $7.76 on Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.

Hey, The NYT Pay Wall.What were they thinking?

Scientists explain it as a journalism-specific variant of the near-death experience when the brain sensing that the end is near it floods the body with endorphin-like chemicals that makes any cockamamie, hare-brained scheme at survival seem all the more hallucinatory.

If it's not morning in America again,

it means the end of America.

[jimbo123]

And 50% of the paid NYT newsroom staff will be on its way to the unemployment line very soon as Pinch and the family prepare to sell out to Carlos Slim. Fun times on the way in 2012...

[Rembrandt]

I live in Sarasota; I like to read a newspaper printed on paper not on a computer screen. In Sarasota, that means the Herald-Tribune or nada.

I figure Halifax will take over on Jan 1 since businesses have to do end of the year accounting (rolls of newsprint, ink, printing presses, etc.) and that’s the ideal time to make the turnover happen. The arrival of a conservative newspaper can’t happen too soon for me. Goodbye NY Slimes, don’t let the border slap you on your fat Obama as you leave!

[tcrlaf]

As long as Pinch and the rest of the entirely-GAY editorial board remain the heros of the Gay Bars, and popular on the Manhattan high-dollar Social Circiut, they could give a damn less what happens to the paper.

[ExCTCitizen]

Times Co shares, which have lost a fifth of their value this year, closed at $7.76 on Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.

if the stock was .000000001 a share it would be OVERPRICED!!!