Newspaper industry conducts a yard sale
It seemed like a yard sale Tuesday for the newspaper industry.
We checked the classifieds looking for ads, but didn’t find any. I hope they didn’t put it on Craigslist.
Instead of moldy comic books and 8-track tapes of old Beatles albums, the big item Tuesday was the Tribune company. Yes, our long-suffering friends in the Tribune family of newspapers took one more step toward a resolution — we hope — of their company’s financial woes Tuesday when stockholders approved real estate billionaire Sam Zell’s plan to buy the company.
The Tribune’s own Phil Rosenthal reports today:
If all goes according to plan, this Tribune Co.’s special shareholders meeting was its last.
Never again will a Tribune chairman have to field questions from public shareholders the way Dennis FitzSimons did for almost 40 minutes, even though the outcome of the proceedings was never in doubt.
Shareholders of the 160-year-old Chicago-based media concern, publicly traded since 1983, voted as expected. They overwhelmingly supported the second half of Sam Zell’s debt-heavy plan to take the company private again through an employee stock ownership plan.
So, assuming the Federal Communications Commission signs off on requisite regulatory matters, and Tribune gets the secondary solvency opinion needed to finalize the billions in loans for which Zell’s $34-per-share proposal calls, it will be goodbye to Wall Street and to events like Tuesday’s austere get-together at Tribune Tower.
Read Rosenthal’s column here.
Desiree Hanford of The New York Times adds:
Despite the strong shareholder support, which had been expected, Wall Street remains skeptical that the deal will close in its current form, since moving forward at $34 a share would leave the company with heavy debt.
“The concern isn’t so much with shareholders but with the credit markets and with Zell and the fact that he may reassess the situation,” said Dave Novosel, a senior analyst with the market research firm Gimme Credit. “I’d be doubtful the deal gets done as proposed. That’s not to say that it won’t, because a lot of it depends on credit market conditions, and what happens there today is different than what they could be like on Oct. 21 or Nov. 21.”
…Although Tribune’s employees are largely nonunion, representatives of several unions whose members do work there spoke at the meeting to voice concern that workers would not have enough of a voice. Mr. FitzSimons assured them that they would, saying that the new corporate structure, which centers on an employee stock ownership plan, would be beneficial to them.
Read the NYT story here.
For those of you keeping Score, the Tribune company owns a slew of big papers, including the Tribune (obviously, The Los Angeles Times, The Baltimore Sun, Newsday, The Orlando Sentinel, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and The Hartford Courant. It also owns 23 TV stations, including the WGN cable channel and the Chicago Cubs.
Read the Associated Press story here.
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But the Trib wasn’t the only newspaper selling things Tuesday. Up the street in Philadelphia, the Inquirer was also holding a garage sale.
Which consisted of the garage. And the building, too.
The Inky’s Bob Fernandez reported Tuesday:
Make an offer: landmark 1920s-era newspaper building.
Looks like wedding cake.
Bronze cap.
Pulitzer plaques not included.
Brian Tierney, chief executive officer of Philadelphia Media Holdings L.L.C., said today that the company would sell the Inquirer Building, which also houses the Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com, and downtown property to reduce debt and reinvest in the company’s media businesses. The company will present the 18-story building for sale to real estate developers in an offering memorandum mailed nationwide in September.
…The Inquirer Building is about half vacant, said Richard Thayer, PMH executive vice president of finance, because of downsizing and the fact that many employees staff suburban news and advertising offices, and a printing plant in Montgomery County.
Oh — and, at the same time, the Inquirer is asking around about where it can move its operation once it becomes homeless. A total of 950 employees.
No word yet on a projected selling price. Fernandez reports the property’s tax assessment is $16.7 million, based mostly its value as office and parking space.
Read about it in Tuesday’s Inquirer.
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Sorry, but the Trib company and the Inquirer building were the only notable items wearing sale stickers Tuesday. Nothing left but a stack of Little Golden Books and a box of Topps baseball cards that still show the scars from bicycle spokes.
Seriously, though, best wishes to our friends in the Trib and Inky companies. Let’s hope these yard sales allow those respective companies to retain their newsroom staffs and help us all rededicate ourselves to our craft and our readers.
Hang in there, folks.
