The Old Gray Lady is looking a lot younger these days. Less than five years after desperately needing a costly $250 million capital infusion from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, The New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT) has staged a remarkable rebound. Shares have nearly doubled in the past two years, handily surpassing the S&P 500 Index. Rival Gannett (NYSE: GCI), publisher of the USA Today, has fared even better. Give credit where it’s due. These companies took a machete to their expense structures, and they now appear to be on much more solid operational footing. Here’s a quick… Read More
The Old Gray Lady is looking a lot younger these days. Less than five years after desperately needing a costly $250 million capital infusion from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, The New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT) has staged a remarkable rebound. Shares have nearly doubled in the past two years, handily surpassing the S&P 500 Index. Rival Gannett (NYSE: GCI), publisher of the USA Today, has fared even better. Give credit where it’s due. These companies took a machete to their expense structures, and they now appear to be on much more solid operational footing. Here’s a quick snap shot of the Times’ income statement in 2007 and 2012. More than a third of the Times’ revenue base has dried up (though a few asset sales also shrank revenues). But a tight control on costs and a huge cutback in capital spending has enabled the newspaper publisher to generate positive free cash flow. The company has even reinstated a modest dividend after getting rid of it back in 2008.#-ad_banner-# The turnaround for Gannett hasn’t been quite as impressive, and its share price gains are only so robust because shares were so depressed a few years back. Read More