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No
sale for Boston Globe;
The move ended a yo-yo half-year for the Globe and its employees, as the Times Co. first threatened to close the Globe in the spring, then put it up for sale, and now has shelved the sale plans. The two prospective Globe buyers were a team headed by Stephen Taylor, a member of the family that originally owned the 137-year-old Globe and sold it for $1.1 billion in 1993 to the Times Co., and Platinum Equity, a Beverly Hills, Calif.-based investment company that bought the San Diego Union-Tribune this year. The Globe has reported that both Taylor and Platinum offered about $35 million for the Globe and the Telegram & Gazette, combined. Both papers are owned by the Times Co. and their purchase reportedly would also have included an assumption of at least $59 million in pension liabilities from the Times. As the Times announced that it would not sell the Globe, it left open the possibility of a sale of its sister newspaper, the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester, Mass.
Janet L. Robinson, president and chief executive officer of the Times Co., said the company hoped to come to a decision about the future of the Telegram & Gazette “as quickly as possible,” according to the Telegram & Gazette. It said the Times Co. was assessing “strategic alternatives” for the Worcester paper. The Times Co. bought the Telegram & Gazette in 2000 for $296 million. Robinson made her comment at a meeting with Globe employees, who greeted her announcement that the Globe sale was off with applause. That meeting ended a period of uncertainty for the Globe that began when the Times threatened in April to close the paper if its unions didn’t agree to $20 million in concessions. The Globe reportedly was on pace to lose $85 million this year. Times executives told Globe employees that the company decided not to sell the Globe and its Web site, Boston.com, because spending cuts -- including the union concessions, reductions in management compensation and closing of the Globe’s printing plan in Billerica, Mass. -- and an increase in newsstand and subscription prices had put the Globe on a more solid financial footing. After much wrangling, the unions approved the concessions and the threat to close the Globe ended. In its place, the Times Co. put on the table this past summer an offer to sell the Globe and the Telegram & Gazette as a package. The Times Co. reportedly is still trying to sell its minority stake in New England Sports Ventures, which includes the Boston Red Sox and the NESN television sports network. Pursuit of that sale has been ongoing for nine months.
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The
New York Times Co., five days after fielding offers from two prospective
buyers for The Boston Globe, pulled the Globe off the market Oct. 14.
The
Times has been negotiating with a group led by Ralph D. Crowley Jr.,
president and chief executive of Polar Beverages of Worcester, and Harry
T. Whitin, a former editor of the Telegram & Gazette, who want to
buy the Worcester daily, Whitin said.
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