McClatchy to Declare Bankruptcy?

My completely uninformed guess is this. The McClatchy family seems to have some independent wealth (Kevin McClatchey owned the Pirates for a while). If they have enough money they will try to buy Sacramento, Fresno and Modesto, which are the legacy Bee properties, if the hedge fund is willing to sell.

 

My understanding of what happened is this. A hedge fund called Chatam Asset Management refinanced the debt. Since Chatam is the majority debtor in bankruptcy they will assume control of the chain. This is a very oversimplified explanation but at the end of the day it is Chatam's company.

I don't think anyone knows what Chatam's plans for McClatchy are. Most particularly, if they are interested in selling off the chain piece by piece or just milking the entire chain for cash.

I also wonder about this. McClatchy ahs 29 properties (I count Raliegh and Durham as one). EBITDA for the 12 months ending 9/30/2019 was about 70 million dollars. TSo McClatchy cash flows abut two million dollars a paper. The fourth quarter for the industry sucked and revenues were generally down 8-10%. So cash flow was probably down. All the papers did not make the same margins so I wonder if some of the papers are close to negative cash flow and closure as advertising revenues continue to nosedive.

And I wonder how far away we are from the Miami Herald and the Fort Lauderdale paper merging.

 

The mere mention of Alden should elicit a lot of groans.

 

And even more -- LOTS more -- obscenities ...

 

As we are pretty much working from home these days, McClatchy is offering me a company laptop.

I don't need one, I tell them (frankly, I've never used a laptop). My desktop at home works fine. What I REALLY need is a second monitor to extend my workspace.

---"Can you take a monitor from your workspace at the office?'' they ask.

I'd rather keep my office workspace intact, I reply. I may need it again. Surely there is an extra monitor available among all the empty desks in this office I could have, correct?

---"IT says no."

This fucking company.

 

Not at all surprised. After all, gotta sell off the surplus equipment to help pay for the CEO's $35,000/month housing allowance ...

 

Also not at all surprised, BTE.

At my shop, they have been encouraging "the newsroom" to work from home whenever possible. But the reporters all have laptop computers, so they can come and go from work without any hassle.

The copy desk uses iMacs, with big, heavy monitors (they are from 2014 or so), and when we asked about transporting them to and from work — while we try to balance the necessary collaboration of working in the newsroom with coronavirus safety — we were told, "You could damage your computers with all that transporting back and forth."

Priorities ...

 

For anyone familiar with iMacs . . . how easy is it to hook up a second monitor? Everything I'm seeing makes it look relatively easy, as long as you have the right adapter. Mine is old (2007), so my port is mini DVI. Do most monitors come with a DVI port (thereby requiring me to get a mini-DVI-to-DVI adapter)?

 

Most new monitors do NOT have a DVI input any more. You might be better off finding an old used one somewhere.

 

I don't necessarily need one with DVI. Just need one that has something I can pair with an adapter with mini-DVI on one side.

Mini DVI-to-HDMI, for example.

What do most new monitors have these days?

 

Most new monitors are HDMI. Mine, oddly, has an HDMI and a VGA, but no DVI. If you have a DVI-to-HDMI adapter, you’re ready to roll.