Posted on 09/11/2008 2:05:08 PM PDT by La Enchiladita
Mexican telecommunications tycoon Carlos Slim Helú, the world’s second richest man, has become the third largest outside shareholder of the New York Times, after reporting a 6.4 per cent stake worth $127m.
The purchase, disclosed in a US regulatory filing on Wednesday, comes months after Harbinger Capital Partners purchased close to 20 per cent of the publisher of the namesake newspaper and the Boston Globe and launched a proxy war for board seats.
Arturo Elías Ayub, Mr Slim’s son-in-law and the communications director of Mr Slim’s Carso Group, told the FT on Wednesday that they started buying the stock a month or so ago, and declared their holding when it rose above 5 per cent, in accordance with SEC rules.
”The investment is purely financial,” he said. “It’s a great company, the price is cheap and it gives a good dividend.”
New York Times shares have fallen 33 per cent in the past 12 months.
Mr Slim, who made his fortune from telecommunications businesses including Teléfonos de México and América Móvil, has shown increasing interest in media companies as the two industries have converged.
Known as a value buyer, he has significant holdings in the debt and equity of Mexico’s two largest broadcasters, and disclosed a 1 per cent stake in Independent News & Media, the Irish newspaper group, in May.
(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...
A fool and his money.
Tijeras_Slim, the New Mexican Joe Schmoe, and too cheap to buy a decent car. :)
Maybe he is going to convert it into a spanish language paper so mexican street vendors will have wrapping paper and mexican upholstery shops will stuffing for doing tuck ‘n roll on their cars.
Wonder if Carlos will hire illegals
News from the future!!!!
Carlos Slim [Mexican millionaire] sells his 6.4% stake in NY Times
Shhhh.....:^)
Are you related? You should be nice to Carlitos and get a muy grande inheritance...;^)
Sucker born everyday!
Carlos lost a ton of money on Global Crossing.
Carlos lost a ton of money on CompUSA.
Carlos is going to move slowly on taking over the NYT and in the end will loose a ton of money.
However, if he likes the way the current management runs it, or he thinks his stake will give him some input in how its run, then maybe it's not strictly a finical investment.
I wonder if Bush made a promise to be fulfilled at a later date. Imagine, domestic copies of the nyt printed in mexican (lower case intentional).
Bingo!
Bwahhhaaaahahahahah!!!!
and we all thought the NYT was already pro-illegal.
Probably end up more like George Obama in a hut. :-P
That raging idiot! Doesn’t he know that the Sulzberger family own special stock that gives them total control over the corporation? This means that even if he owned 100% of common stock, he has no, zero say in how the corporation is run.
On top of things, the Sulzbergers have long made it clear that they intend to drive the value of common stock into the toilet, so they can buy it all back for pennies and privatize the corporation.
About the only thing Slim could do would be to make a contract with the Mexican mafia to kill every member of the Sulzberger family, then blackmail their executor. Which, given the amount of money he just threw down a rat hole, would probably be a reasonable business proposition.
Isn't the NYT set up with public and family shares, with family shares having 10x voting rights over A shares so that the family can control the paper without owning all that many shares? It's in the 10K filings with the SEC, but I'm too tired to look it up at the moment.
The real problem Pinch finds himself in is that the family is rumored to be less than pleased with the share price and the risk of a dividend cut. If there's a major management shakeup at the top, it will have to come from the family. One can only hope that they are less interested in political correctness and more interested in maintaining the lifestyle to which they have become accustom.
Jack
How sad.
Muy triste.
:^)
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