By: Media owner Belo Corp. was expected to announce Friday that it has closed the deal to spin off its four newspapers, including The Dallas Morning News, into a new company.
When the deal closes, Belo shareholders will get one share of the new A.H. Belo Corp. for every five Belo shares they owned on Jan. 25.
Shares of A.H. Belo are scheduled to begin regular trading Monday on the New York Stock Exchange.
Separately, Fitch Ratings on Friday maintained Belo debt ratings at noninvestment-grade, or junk status, but raised Belo's outlook from negative to stable. Fitch said the company has a "generally predictable revenue base" and will continue to control costs.
This week, Standard & Poor's said it would include A.H. Belo in an index of 600 smaller companies after trading Friday, replacing Napster Inc., which is too small for the index. The remaining Belo broadcast company will stay on S&P's index of 400 middle-sized companies.
Dallas-based Belo owns 20 television stations. Shareholders had pushed to split the company, hoping Belo shares would rise without exposure to the newspaper industry, which is struggling with declining advertising revenue.
After the spin-off is complete, A.H. Belo will own the Dallas paper and The Providence (R.I.) Journal, The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, Calif., and the Denton (Texas) Record-Chronicle, plus the newspapers' Web sites.
Shares of Belo fell 7 cents, to $15.92 Friday afternoon.
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