For David Foster: It doesn’t square. But Pinch Sulzberger doesn’t care much. Here’s why: The New York Times Company has a dual class of stock, in which the stock held by the Ochs family has far bigger voting rights than does the publicly held stock. So the Sulzberger family can sit back and ignore to outside challenges, secure in the ancient legal principle, “Well, what are you going to do about it? We’ve got the votes.”

This is what the public shareholders are going to do about it: last year, a Morgan Stanley money manager sold Morgan’s holdings in the publicly held stock (7.15% of the total) after witholding its votes for the election of company directors for two years, and asking Sulzberger to give up the dual class voting privleges. Pinch had ignored him. He realized that Pinch would contintuea to tell him to go to hell with his damn changes. So he sold. It depressed the stock price. I think it is possible that Pinch is deliberately running down the price of the public then tell everyone in the world to go to hell. Risky, but it might work. It could also be that Pinch is just a witless fool who is squandering his family’s inheritance. It happened with the Reid family, who owned the old New York HERALD TRIBUNE for three generations before they were forced out. Pinch is the fourth generation of the Ochs family to control the TIMES. My bet is he will be the last.

Here’s an article that gives details:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117742039922080417.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Sincerely yours,
Gregory Koster