Bloomberg News reports that the New York Times Company, that bought the Boston Globe for $1.2 billion in 1993, is now accepting bids in the range of $100 million, or about a tenth of what it paid just twenty years ago. Complicating matters further is $110 million in pension liabilities:
The New England Media Group, the division that manages the Globe, has about $110 million in pension liabilities, according to two of the people familiar with the matter. Times Co. would prefer cash to help offset the liabilities rather than bids that assume even part of them, one of the people said. Such bids would be less attractive because in the event a new owner of the Globe were to become insolvent, the Globe’s pension liabilities would revert back to Times Co., the people said.
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