Jimmy Finkelstein is definitely interested in acquiring the New York Daily News from Mort Zuckerman, rival New York paper The Post has reported. Previously the entrepreneur was only rumored as considering it.
The Post quoted a source close to Finkelstein who said, “Jimmy Finkelstein is definitely in.”
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The businessman is a serial investor in news publications who currently owns The Hill, a Washington, DC, daily aimed at Beltway insiders, and who previously owned weekly newspapers in Manhattan, Dan’s Papers in the Hamptons and The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard and Adweek.
No price offer has been revealed, but Zuckerman is said to want at least $150 million for it.
The Daily News is a tabloid known for provocative headlines and which is the perennial number two tabloid in New York City behind the much more popular Post. New York City’s number 3 overall newspaper is reportedly operating at a $30 million annual loss and has $150 million invested in its printing press.
Zuckerman made the investment in 2009 so that the paper could print every single one of its pages in color. But the upgrade has not helped circulation.
Taking on a losing operation with a large debt is partly why Cablevision’s owner James Dolan offered a whopping $1 to buy the Daily news lock, stock and barrel. In a statement Cablevision insisted that its offer was not just for the paper, but for its printing presses as well.
But the Post reports that the presses are now conducting a great deal of outsourced work, bringing in more than $1 million in annual profit on their own.
Leon Black is another one of a number of possible suitors for the publication. But media mogul Michael Bloomberg has stated that he is definitely not interested in it.
