McClatchy Loses $1.47 Billion
The McClatchy Company reported a non cash charge in the fourth quarter of $1,470,000 that raised the company’s 2007 losses to more than two and a half billion dollars. The Sacramento based newspaper publisher had already taken a non-cash charge of $1.4 billion in the third quarter.
The fourth-quarter net loss was $1.43 billion, or the equivalent of $17.46 a share which is almost twice the stock’s current price. For all of 2007, the net loss was $2.74 billion, or $33.37 a share.
They blamed the state of the economy and battered stock price for the the write-off.
Accounting rules required the company to bring its balance sheets in line with its market value.
McClatchy publishes 30 daily newspapers, including The Sacramento Bee, and about 50 non-daily newspapers.
The McClatchy Company’s stock price has fallen by more than 70 percent from two years ago, before it took on billions in debt through its acquisition of Knight-Ridder Inc.