Platinum Equity bids $35 million for Boston Globe: report
08 Aug 2009
Private equity firm Platinum Equity has offered to acquire the 137-year-old Boston Globe and the rest of the New York Times Co's New England Media Group for $35 million, a Globe report said today.
The Beverly Hills, California-based private equity firm has also offered to assume $59 million of the publishing group's pension liabilities, according to the report.
The New England Group also publishes the Worcester Telegram & Gazette and its websites.
Platinum Equity is headed by young billionaire Tom Gores, a buyout artist who has produced a Lindsay Lohan film and bought and sold dozens of distressed companies, the Globe report said.
Gores, who has been into buyout of troubled technology and industrial companies, mostly computer modem makers and steel distributors, has now turned to the media business, the report added.
Platinum Equity had earlier acquired the San Diego Union-Tribune in May, for about $50 million. Since its acquisition, Platinum has replaced or laid off six of the paper's top eight managers, and is looking to rent out the top two floors of the newspaper's headquarters, the report added.
