The NYT and shareholder rights

The NYT has long taken the lead in pushing for more shareholder rights. No one more aggressively than the Times' Gretchen Morgenson, as I've thoroughly documented. Here's Gretchen just last Sunday:

Investors may have hoped that the Securities and Exchange Commission would do the right thing and allow them a much more active role in governance matters at their companies. Ownership usually brings certain rights, after all.

Yet ironically the Times has been considerably weaker on its own shareholders' rights, as I've discussed, e.g., here. A hedge fund manager named Hassan Elmasry has been fighting for two years to get a fraction of the shareholder rights that Gretchen and her NYT colleagues howl about. Elmasry, among other things, attacked NYT CEO's Arthur Sulzberger's compensation, another perennial topic at the Times.

But today's WSJ (which also used to be family controlled, but opened up under shareholder pressure) writes:

This week, having decided the Times's board wasn't going to take the action he was seeking anytime soon, he dumped his fund's 7.2% stake in New York Times. The company's stock fell 43 cents, or 2.3% to $18.48, an 11-year low. * * * "Trying to be an activist shareholder in the NYT is a futile effort, period," said Edward Atorino, a media analyst at Benchmark Co.

The WSJ story adds:

The sale has also led some investors to question whether the Times can sustain itself as a public company or if it will be forced to explore alternative structures such as taking the company private.

Aha, a management buyout. Wonder what the NYT's Ben Stein will have to say about that.

Comments

[bankelele]

Nice point about the NYT ownership, though they are probably worried of a Murcoch style takeover