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Article: Can platinum equity turn newspapers into gold? Firm hopes to make San Diego paper a profitable publication.(INVESTMENT)(San Diego Union-Tribune)
- Article from:
- Los Angeles Business Journal
- Article date:
- March 30, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 CBJ, L.P. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Platinum Equity LLC likes to buy companies in troubled industries, so its purchase of the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper should make perfect sense. But the question is whether one private equity firm can change the failing business model of daily papers.
Announcement of the Union-Tribune acquisition came within weeks of disclosures that Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times, had entered bankruptcy; Denver's Rocky Mountain News would cease publication after 149 years; Hearst Corp. was contemplating closure of the San Francisco Chronicle; and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer would end its 146-year run in print. Leveraged buyouts of the Minneapolis Star ...