The New York Times Co. has decided not to sell The Boston Globe. The swift decision to take the paper off the market less than a week after bids were due suggests that the offers were too low.
Final bids are unknown, but in a preliminary round, two suitors offered about $35 million for the Globe, plus the assumption of pension liabilities. The Times Co. purchased the Globe for $1.1
billion in 1993.
Times Co. top execs say they no longer have to sell the paper because the Globe's finances have improved after aggressive cost cutting. Cuts include new union contracts,
less management pay and consolidation of printing plants. The paper also raised the price of newsstand and home delivery copies.
Terminating the sale caps a tumultuous period for the
137-year-old newspaper. In April, the Times Co. threatened to shutter the Globe unless it got $20 million in concessions from its unions - which it got. By June, the Times Co. had hired Goldman
Sachs to manage a possible sale of the Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, which it also owns. The Times Co. says it is still assessing "strategic alternatives" for the Worcester paper.
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