By: Newspaper publisher McClatchy Co. said it may not be able to recover $5.3 million owed by newspapers it had sold to companies that have recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The write-off pushes McClatchy's fourth-quarter net loss to $27 million, or 33 cents per share, up from the $21.7 million loss the company reported in February, according to a regulatory filing late Monday.
The company declined to say which papers still owed it money, but three former McClatchy properties filed for bankruptcy protection this year: The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, owned by Brian Tierney's Philadelphia Media Holdings LLC, and the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, controlled by the private-equity firm Avista Capital Partners.
The Star Tribune owes McClatchy only about $91,000, according to a court filing, and Ben Taylor, a spokesman for the newspaper, said he wasn't aware of any other debts owed to the company.
Philadelphia Media Holdings spokesman Jay Devine said he didn't know of any outstanding debts to McClatchy.
A growing number of newspaper companies, faced with plummeting advertising revenues, have filed for protection from creditors or renegotiated terms to ease the burden of debt payments.
McClatchy, which owns The Miami Herald, The Sacramento (Calif.) Bee and other properties, is struggling with its own debts. The company owed about $2.04 billion as of the end of 2008, stemming mainly from its 2006 acquisition of the Knight Ridder newspaper chain.
The company has said it plans deep cost cuts this year, hoping to save between $100 million to $110 million, and has slashed its dividend 90 percent.
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