Troubled Boston Globe has three buyers: report

13 June 2009

The troubled 137-year-old The Boston Globe, which its owner, the New York Times Company, has been trying to hive off for some time, is reported to have three suitors ready to buy the struggling newspaper even as it fights a wage contract battle with its largest union.

The Boston Globe reported yesterday that ''Three Boston businessmen - a Boston Celtics owner, a former advertising mogul, and a member of the family that ran the Globe for generations - have emerged as prominent potential buyers of the Globe, according to people knowledgeable about their interest in the city's leading daily.''

The three reported suitors are Stephen Pagliuca, a managing director at Boston private equity company Bain Capital and co-owner of the Boston Celtics basketball team, Jack Connors, co-founder of a major advertising agency and reported to be worth about half a billion dollars, and Stephen Taylor, a former Globe executive and member of the family that sold the Globe in 1993 to the Times Co for $1.1 billion, in the biggest newspaper deal at that time.

In October 2006, Jack Connors and former General Electric Co boss Jack Welch were considering a joint bid for The Boston Globe, where JP Morgan Chase & Co had valued the newspaper at $550 million to $600 million, far below the $1.1 billion the Times paid in 1993. (See: Jack Welch may bid for Boston Globe, says report)

Although the three suitors have not made a formal bid, their decision may be hampered by the ongoing standoff between the Times Co and the Boston Globe's largest union, The Boston Newspaper Guild.

The Boston Globe broke the story just after a day it reported that Goldman Sachs had been hired by the Times Co to find a buyer for The Boston Globe.