By: E&P Staff and The Associated Press Knight Ridder shareholders, meeting in San Jose, Ca., voted this afternoon to approve McClatchy?s $6.5 billion acquisition (including debt)of the company.
The deal had to receive at least 80% of shareholders? vote for the transaction to go through. According to a Knight Ridder statement, the final tally was 88.76% voted for the deal either in person or by proxy.
Pete Carey of the San Jose Mercury News reported that Knight Ridder?s Chairman and CEO Tony Ridder gave an emotional speech during the annual meeting in San Jose. ?Our heritage, our values, our collaborative culture, our talented people, our distinguished newspapers, our online innovation and our place in our community have added up to something unique,? Ridder said. ?Tomorrow, as new owners assume the mantle for what we have built, we should take pride in the strength of the journey.?
McClatchy and Knight Ridder executives are expected to ink the final merger by 4 p.m. (Pacific Time) today.
Late this afternoon, Knight Ridder?s stock is trading down $0.18 to $60.67. McClatchy is trading down $1.04 to $40.56.
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The AP reported:
Knight Ridder Chairman P. Anthony Ridder spent most of the 45-minute session extolling the achievements of Knight Ridder's 32 daily newspapers.
As he wrapped up his eulogy, Ridder broke down in tears as an audience filled with members of his own family and former company executives rose to console him with applause.
``Knight Ridder is a great company,'' Ridder told the gathering of just over 100 people, several of whom also were crying. ``It was shaped by giants of our industry.''
McClatchy, based in Sacramento, Calif.., may take control of Knight Ridder as early as Tuesday, marking the end of a company with roots dating back to 1892, when Herman Ridder bought a German-language paper in New York.
Ridder Publications merged with Knight Newspapers Inc. in 1974, forming a company that produced some of the country's biggest papers. The list includes the Miami Herald, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Kansas City Star, the Charlotte Observer, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the San Jose Mercury News.
McClatchy has arranged to sell 12 of the Knight Ridder papers, including the Beacon Journal, to eight other buyers for $2.1 billion to help reduce the debt that it is taking on. The deal for the last paper to be sold, the Times Leader of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., was announced today.
Knight Ridder's papers wound up winning 85 Pulitzer Prizes -- journalism's highest honor -- but those achievements didn't seem to matter much on Wall Street, where institutional investors have become increasingly dissatisfied with the industry's shrinking profit margins as more advertising shifts to the Internet.
Those financial pressures consumed Knight Ridder, whose shares sank from a high of $80 in 2004 to a low of $52.42 last year, despite Ridder's persistent efforts to boost the company's earnings with cost cuts and other measures.
The sliding stock price prompted Knight Ridder's three largest shareholders to confront the board last year. That rebellion led to the McClatchy sale, a cash-and-stock deal valued at $67.25 per share when it was announced in March.
In the meeting today, Ridder defended the decision to submit to the demands of its biggest shareholders as the best move for the company.
``We believe a prolonged battle and a period of turmoil would have been damaging for the company and the employees,'' he said.
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