Facing a likely delisting from the New York Stock Exchange, newspaper publisher the Journal Register Co., which publishes 22 dailies and a myriad of weeklies, has hired Lazard to formally sell itself.
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Although the publisher of New Jersey's Trentonian and Connecticut's New Haven Register has watched its market capitalization plummet to under $10 million from about $240 million over the past year, the company claims it is not likely to file for bankruptcy. In a statement, Journal Register CEO James Hall said,
While we are concerned about the state of the overall economy and the environment for print advertising, we generated $90.3 million of Ebitda in 2007, well in excess of our $38.5 million interest expense, reduced debt by $105 million during 2007 and have no scheduled principal payments due until the second quarter of 2009.
In October, the company originally hinted at selling select assets in noncore markets -- it defined core markets as Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Ohio. However, since then it has shuttered papers in Pennsylvania. If it does stick to its original plans, the Gannett Co., which owns the Poughkeepsie Journal, might be interested in the New York markets of Kingston, Troy and Saratoga, notes The Deal's Auction Block. Additionally, Gannett has assets that overlap the Journal Register's entire portfolio, so an offer for the full company is also a possibility. In October, The Deal also noted another publisher with competing assets that might be willing to bid: privately held Advance Publications Inc., which owns the Cleveland Plains Dealer and the Newark Star-Ledger.
Meanwhile, Forbes offers a short list of companies that won't be bidding, McClatchy Co. and Lee Enterprises, which like the Journal Register are having trouble digesting earlier acquisitions. Journal Register purchased 21st Century Newspapers in 2004 for $415 million.
Journal Register is joining 22 media businesses on the block, according to our Auction Block database. Some other newspaper publishers up for sale include the Ottaway Newspapers Inc., Sun-Times Media Group Inc. and Landmark Communications Inc. - Matthew Wurtzel
See press release from the Journal Register
See story from Forbes
See October story about Journal Register from TheDeal.com
See story about 21st Century purchase from TheDeal.com
See Journal Register profile from Auction Block
See full list of 22 media assets on the block from Auction Block
See story about Ottaway auction from TheDeal.com
See McClatchy postmortem from The Deal newsweekly
