Standard & Poors hat die Anleihen der New York Times Co. auf «below investment grade» bzw. Junk-Status herabgestuft. Dies nachdem das Unternehmen für das dritte Quartal 2008 einen Gewinnrückgang von 51% bekannt geben musste.
Mathew Ingram dazu:
- «Ad revenues for the company’s traditional media operations, including the New York Times newspaper, fell by 14 per cent in September. Ad revenues for the online operations, including About.com, climbed by 14.5 per cent — but those operations still only account for 12 per cent of the business. The bottom line: Online ad revenues in the year to date climbed by about $10-million to $79-million, but ad revenues for the company’s traditional businesses fell by about $200-million to $1.2-billion. Even if online ad revenues were to increase ten-fold, it still wouldn’t make a dent in those losses. Classified sales alone were down by 25 per cent.
In just the last six months, the company’s stock price has fallen by 50 per cent, to a recent close of about $10, making the New York Times Co. worth $1.5-billion instead of $3-billion. In 2004, the company was worth more than $6.5-billion. In other words, in the past five years the Times has lost over 75 per cent of its value. The ironic thing, of course, is that the newspaper’s website and web operations have become more and more successful, with traffic exploding ever since it removed the pay wall that used to enclose its columnists and other features.»