New York Times Co sells The Boston Globe to Red Sox boss John Henry for $70 mn

The New York Times Co today said that it has agreed to sell The Boston Globe and its other New England media properties to John Henry, principal owner of the Boston Red Sox, for $70 million in cash.

The deal includes The Boston Globe, BostonGlobe.com, Boston.com, Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Telegram.com, GlobeDirect, the Globe's direct mail marketing company, and the company's 49-per cent stake in Metro Boston.

''We are very proud of the association we have had with The Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette and we're delighted to have found a buyer in John Henry, who has strong local roots and a deep appreciation of the importance of these publications to the Greater Boston community,'' said Mark Thompson, president and CEO of The New York Times Co.

''As a result of this agreement, we will be able to sharpen our company focus on and investments in The New York Times brand and its journalism,'' he added.

Henry, who also owns the English Premier League soccer club Liverpool F.C., said in a statement published by The Boston Globe, "The Boston Globe's award-winning journalism as well as its rich history and tradition of excellence have established it as one of the most well respected media companies in the country."

In February, the Times Co announced that it is exploring a sale of the New England Media Group, and has hired investment banker Evercore Partners as an adviser for the sale.

The move came more than three years after the Times Co tried unsuccessfully to sell The Boston Globe after several months of scouring for buyers due to the onset of the global economic turmoil.

The sale price of $70 million reflects the downturn in the US media industry from the era the Times Co had paid a staggering $1.1 billion for The Boston Globe in 1993.

The 141-year-old, Massachusetts-based Boston Globe, the 17th-largest newspaper in the US by daily paid circulation, was until recent years one of the top US papers with a strong international, national and local reporting staff that rivalled its bigger competitors like The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and The New York Times.

However, like all US newspapers, where over 12,500 jobs have been lost in US print journalism in the past three years, The Boston Globe has been forced to cut back on operations due to a fall in advertising revenues as readers opt for free online news.

The Globe has seen a 1.7 per cent decline in circulation sales last year and a drop in ad revenue by 7.8 per cent to $183 million in the same period.

The Boston Sunday Globe's paid circulation was 372,541, according to the Chicago-based Audit Bureau, up 3.4 per cent from a year earlier, while daily circulation was 230,351, up by 11.9 per cent.

Most of the US print newspapers have been struggling since the 2007 recession, and many small regional newspapers have recently been bought by investors like Warren Buffett, who sees growth despite analysts seeing a dead end for the print media.

Some large papers that have recently been put on sale have found no takers while others are undergoing restructuring like News Corp plans to spin-off its print business, which includes The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post and MarketWatch.

Bloomberg had earlier reported that Tribune Co is in talks with investment bankers to explore a sale of some of its newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.

The sale comes more than a year after the Times Co sold its 16 regional newspapers and less than a year after it sold About.com to US internet company InterActiveCorp for $300 million. (See: InterActiveCorp offers to buy Times Co's About.com for over $300 mn: report)