The New York Times Company accepted final bids for the Boston Globe on Thursday, and it appears that it will sell the newspaper for one-tenth of the price it originally paid.
Bloomberg reported that the bids are in the range of $100 million, according to three sources familiar with the situation. That amounts to approximately one-tenth of the $1.1 billion that the Times paid for the newspaper in 1993.
It was expected that the Globe's sale price would amount to much less than the original price the Times paid. In 2012, a Wall Street Journal piece estimated that the Globe could be purchased for about $200 million. The disparity speaks to the decline of the print industry over the past twenty years.
The New York Times Company put the Globe up for sale in February. Thursday was the deadline to submit bids. Earlier this month, the Globe reported that there were at least eight parties interested in making offers. The potential buyers include former Time Inc. CEO Jack Griffin, who has teamed up with cousins Ben and Steven Taylor, whose family sold the Globe to the Times, and former Globe president Rick Daniels who is working with private equity executive Heb Ryan.
Bloomberg's Edmund Lee also reported that potential contingencies to the deal have been a sticking point in the talks, according to sources. "At issue is whether to fold in a portion of the pension liability as part of the offers and how to value other parts of the Globe’s balance sheet, said the people," he wrote.
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