• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, July 6, 2011

After several years on the auction block, the New York Times Co. has finally sold a large part of its stake in the Fenway Sports Groups, which owns the Boston Red Sox, the prestigious Fenway Park venue and associated cable TV properties.

NYTCO has sold 390 out of its total 700 Fenway Sports Group shares to three different buyers, in exchange for a total $117 million with a pre-tax gain of $64 million. NYTCO previously sold 50 FSG shares. Out of the 18% of FSG shares originally held by NYTCO, these sales have reduced its stake to about 7.8%.

The media company first brought up the possibility of selling its share in the FSG in the depths of the economic downturn in 2008, when it was scrambling to find sources of liquidity amid the global credit crunch. NYTCO retained Goldman Sachs to manage the planned sale of its stake in FSG, valuing the total 18% share at about $200 million -- but nothing seemed to come of the auction for several years.

During that time, NYTCO shored up its finances through a number of other measures, including selling its new corporate headquarters and leasing space back from the new owner, and raising a high-interest loan from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu.

Around the same time, Goldman Sachs was also retained to oversee the sale of The Boston Globe and several related properties in NYTCO's New England Media Group, which recently took an interesting turn with a bid by a consortium of local investors led by a young Massachusetts entrepreneur named Aaron Kushner, who previously served as CEO of Marian Heath Greeting Cards.

NYTCO is still exploring options for the sale of the New England Media Group, as well as its remaining stake in the FSG.

If it manages to sell the rest of its FSG shares at a comparable price, it stands to recoup the full $200 million valuation assigned to its stake in 2008 -- and score a tidy profit, considering it paid just $75 million for the FSG stake back in 2002.