The New York Times' David Carr asked six analysts one of the questions of the moment: just how much is the Boston Globe worth?
I liked how Fitch's Mike Simonton suggested that "buyer" may be a misnomer; "assumer of costs" might be truer.
Carr also reminds us that Jack Welch's indicated that he might be willing to round up some $500 billion or so to buy the Globe just three years ago. 2006, though, now seems like another lifetime in the newspaper industry. How the Times could have used that kind of money to do battle with Rupert.
So, this week, as we try to separate the potential buyers from those who may just delight at seeing those books (how much of the $85 billion in annual Globe "loss" is operating loss and how much "other"?, for instance), I'll amplify on my remarks to Carr.
Given the state of the world, the ad market, the newspaper market and vagaries of the online future, my best guesstimate of a price: a buck.
A buck essentially represents a gentleman’s agreement: I take a liability, headache and a distraction off your hands, says the buyer. I give you the great potential of the Globe brand, a top 25 news web site and improved ability to re-jigger the pieces, thanks to our new contracts and cost-cutting, says the Times.
A buck recognizes that there is so much unknown and such unchartable risk and reward here that only a token payment can even it out for both sides.
The Times gets shortchanged. It paid $1.1 billion for the paper just 16 years ago. It’s struggled to keep the Globe staffed through bad economic times. It’s subsidized losses.
The new owner takes on great risk. It's highly unlikely any bank will finance a purchase, given the half-dozen bankruptcies we've seen over the last year in the industry. That means the new owner’s own money is immediately at risk. The new owner starts out behind, even with recent contract givebacks, given the trajectory of operating loss and a continuing 30% decline in year-over-year advertising revenue. Forget the purchase price; how many millions will I have to sink in within the next year?
The potential upsides include buying an ad-based franchise at the bottom of a recession and being able to be a shiny newly painted boat in a rising economic sea; 2010 ad numbers can hardly help to be an improvement over this year’s. The feds will soon be paying people to buy cars, and houses will start to sell again; related advertising will recover a bit. 2010, I'm coming to believe, will offer a breather to the beleaguered industry. Yes, the structural changes of ad spending and reading will continue, but a small ad bounce will help dramatically downsized companies in the next calendar year.
