Élet-Stílus

Printed media in trouble

The owner of the New York Times, the Boston Globe and the International Herald Tribune, The New York Times Company, plans to take out a $225 million mortgage loan on its Manhattan headquarters or to implement a sell and leaseback construction on the property to ease its financial troubles.

The media company owns 58% of the building and has two backup credits, each up to $400 million, but half of it has already been used.
Times Co. is struggling owing to a severe decline in its advertising revenue as third quarter results dropped 64.5% compared to last year’s. Based on these results, the financial analyst company, Standard & Poor’s has already downgraded Times Co. shares below investment grade and Moody’s Investors Service is considering making the same move.

It is not only the Times Co. that is affected, as the Tribune Co., the owner of the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and other properties, filed for bankruptcy protection on December 8 as it struggles with an estimated $13 billion of debt and $7.6 billion in assets. “A precipitous decline in revenue and a tough economy have coupled with a credit crisis, making it extremely difficult to support our debt.

All of our major advertising categories have been dramatically impacted,” said Sam Zell, main investor of the publishing company. However, most of the $13 billion debt of the company occurred when Zell made the company private in 2007.

Vocabulary:

  • mortgage – jelzálog
  • headquater – székhely
  • leaseback – visszalízingelés
  • to ease – enyhít
  • backup credits – tartalék hitel
  • to struggle – küzd, viaskodik
  • downgrade – leminősítés
  • bankruptcy protection – csődvédelem
  • estimated – becsült
  • precipitous – meredek

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