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Slim snaps up 6% stake in New York Times

(China Daily/Agencies)
Updated: 2008-09-12 16:49

Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim acquired a 6.4 percent stake in New York Times Co, citing the newspaper publisher's "attractive value" following a 20 percent drop in the stock this year.

The purchase makes Slim the third-biggest shareholder in New York Times outside of the company's controlling Sulzberger family. Slim and a family trust owned 9.1 million shares of New York Times as of Sept 4, according to a regulatory filing on Wednesday. They hadn't previously reported a stake in the company, the third-largest US newspaper publisher.

The stake is passive, according to the filing. Slim may be buying the shares in a bet that a third party would acquire New York Times, said Hal Vogel, a New York media analyst. The company's largest investor, Harbinger Capital Partners, mounted a proxy fight earlier this year for seats on the board, asset sales and more Internet investment.

"Maybe he's just buying what he thinks is part of a bargain," Vogel said in an interview. "He might be playing it for someone else to take it out."

New York Times fell 4 cents to $13.96 on Wednesday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading before the filing. Based on the Sept 4 closing price, the day of the stock purchase, Slim's New York Times stake was valued at $121.2 million.

A bargain?

"It is a great company that has an attractive value today," said Arturo Elias Ayub, a spokesman for Slim, in a telephone interview. "The door is always open to assess whether we will buy more."

New York Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis declined to comment. Charles V Zehren, a spokesman for Harbinger Capital Partners, also wouldn't comment.

Slim, was ranked by Forbes magazine in March as the world's second-richest man with an estimated wealth of $60 billion, behind Berkshire Hathaway Inc's Warren Buffett. Slim owns America Movil SAB, Latin America's largest mobile-phone service provider; Telefonos de Mexico SA, that country's biggest land-line operator; and Grupo Carso SAB.

In Mexico City on Wednesday, Slim told reporters the New York Times investment is "financial," according to a Reuters report. In 2000, Slim bought $90 million of stock in Philip Morris Cos when shares of the biggest cigarette maker traded close to a four-year low. It followed similar purchases of depressed shares in Apple Computer Inc, CompUSA Inc and OfficeMax Inc.

Slim bought a 2 percent stake in Independent News & Media Plc, publisher of the Independent in the UK, earlier this year.