The New York Times Co said it will sell 16 regional newspapers spread across the U.S. Southeast and California to Halifax Media Holdings for $143 million in cash as it looks to cut costs and focus on its most important papers and their websites.Regional newspapers have struggled recently because of weak local retail and national advertising, partly reflecting the economy's broader travails.
The company said it will record an after-tax gain on the sale -- expected to close in a few weeks -- in the first quarter of 2012. It estimates the net after-tax proceeds from the sale to be about $150 million.
"I think that it's toward the low end of what we expected. I was expecting $150-$200 million," Evercore Partners analyst Douglas Arthur told Reuters.
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