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The Tribune’s (TRB) Default Risk: The Future Of Newspapers

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published

Some newspaper companies simply have too much debt now. Journal Register (JRC) is an example. And, The Tribune Company (TRB) may be joining the list.

Accoding to Bloomberg, trading in credit-default swaps put the market’s guess that The Tribune may not be able to pay interest on some of its $13 billion debt at better than 50/50. Based on Bloomberg intelligence: "Tribune swaps prices imply investors consider the company the fourth-riskiest debt issuer among the almost 1,200 worldwide whose credit-default swaps were quoted this week by London-based CMA "

The data indicates the danger of newspaper buy-outs by private equity interests and may be why so few of the large paper chains have been approached in a buy-out crazy market. As cash flow falls, the ability to take on enough to debt cash-out public shareholders disappears.

Two newspaper companies appear to have a particularly high risk. One is Journal Register. The other is McClatchy (MNI).

An industry without private equity interest? How odd.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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