Knight Ridder’s sale price beat some expectations thanks to its g...
Knight Ridder’s sale price beat some expectations thanks to its growing Web operations, said a broker and an Internet analyst. The owner of the Real Cities network of regional websites and CareerBuilder job site agreed to be sold for…
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about $4.5 billion ($6.5 billion including assumed debt) to McClatchy. “It’s a strong price… possibly reflective of the actual buyer and Knight Ridder’s presence in the Internet world,” said Mark Fratrik, vp of BIA Financial. Businesses such as Knight Ridder Digital, which runs sites for papers, are popular because “a lot of people are reading their hometown newspapers when they're not in their hometown,” said Fratrik. Greg Sterling, senior vp of Kelsey Group, agreed. He emphasized the Web operations are the publisher’s most attractive asset. “Those are some of the jewels in that acquisition,” he said: “Print is slack and online is where the growth is… The online ad stuff is really going to be helpful to McClatchy, which doesn’t have all of the online things that Knight Ridder Digital has.”