What's the Boston Globe Worth, Anyway? Try $120 M

Jeff Bercovici | Forbes

A group of investors, led by entrepreneur Aaron Kushner, wants to buy the Boston Globe. The New York Times Co. says it's not for sale - but then that's what the Bancroft family said when Rupert Murdoch offered them $5 billion for The Wall Street Journal, and look how that turned out.

So let's play this game. How much would it cost to buy the Globe? And how much is it actually worth?

For some informed speculation, I turned to media appraiser Kevin Kamen, who correctly predicted Newsday's sale price of $650 million, give or take $25 million. Since the Times Co. doesn't break out figures for the Globe per se, only for the New England Media Group (which also includes the much smaller Worcester Telegram & Gazette), Kamen could only come up with a very rough estimate based on that group's 2009 revenues of $440.6 million; its reported 2009 loss of $85 million, since reined in by $10 million of union-approved cost cuts; and its circulation of 264,000 on weekdays, 419,100 on Sundays.

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