By: (AP) The Edward W. Scripps Trust, controlling shareholder of the E.W. Scripps Co., plans to sell up to 7 million of its Class A shares of common stock in the media company -- about one quarter of the trust's common holdings.
E.W. Scripps filed notice Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission of the proposed stock sale. The sale will not affect the trust's majority voting control.
The trust currently owns about 47% of the company's 61.7 million Class A shares outstanding and about 87% of the 18.4 million common voting shares outstanding.
The decision to sell shares is in keeping with a long-term effort to diversify the trust's assets, Scripps Co. said in a news release. The sale will be made only through a prospectus, not on the open market.
The trust's most recent sale of Scripps Class A common shares was in the summer of 1998.
The Scripps Co., based in Cincinnati, has interests in newspaper publishing, broadcast television, cable television networks, interactive media, and television retailing. Scripps also operates Scripps Howard News Service and United Media, which syndicates and licenses the "Peanuts" and "Dilbert" comic strips.
Shares of Scripps fell $1.37 to close at $77.95 Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.
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