Proxy Battle at the NYT

Get ready folks. Looks like there’s some ol fashioned proxy wrastlin’ brewing down yonder at the NYT:

A dissident investor stepped up pressure on The New York Times Co. Friday, formally proposing its own slate of four directors and saying the company needs to take more drastic action to compete online.
Harbinger Capital, an investment firm that now owns about 19 percent of the company, filed its own proxy statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission listing its nominees for directors to be elected at the Times’ annual meeting April 22.
The Times has already filed its own full slate of director nominees, but has said it was still considering whether to accept Harbinger’s candidates.
Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said the company’s board was interviewing the Harbinger nominees. She declined to comment further on their proxy filing.
The looming proxy battle comes as the Times and other U.S. newspapers are facing huge challenges in adapting to the steady migration of readers and advertising dollars to the Internet. An economic slowdown coupled with a deep slump in the housing market is worsening the situation.

Good for them; we need to see more of this. The stock is about were it was 11 years ago.

Posted by on February 29th, 2008 at 1:27 pm


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