Sunday, September 07, 2008

Blog: KC Star owner may be planning to go private

A post on Alan D. Mutter's Reflections of a Newsosaur blog indicates McClatchy, owner of the Kansas City Star, may be preparing to go private:

The signal that something may be afoot is contained in a brief document filed at 5:01 p.m. yesterday at the Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing states chief executive Gary Pruitt resigned Wednesday as one of the four directors of the family trusts that collectively control 41% of MNI’s stock. Long-time company director Leroy Barnes, Jr., a retired utility executive, is replacing Gary.

Gary would have to step down as a trustee if the family were preparing to buy back the battered public shares of the company. That’s because a chief executive would not be viewed as properly representing the interests of all shareholders if he also sat on the board of a group of insiders trying to acquire full control the company for a fraction of what it was worth two years ago.


The post also includes some commentary about McClatchy's efforts to force its newspapers, including the Star into a cookie-cutter mold instead of allowing individual newspapers to tailor products for the local market.

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