RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Harlequin SaleHope is as hollow as fear, my foolish friend. TorStar is going the way of the Dodo bird. It's the circle of life. 99.9% of species that have existed have gone extinct already. Similary, 99.9% of newspapers that exist today will be bankrupt soon. Prem Watsa invested for social reasons. It was not a high conviction investment designed to earn a high return. (Otherwise he would have bought the voting shares). He has more money than he can spend anyways. He just wants to be invited to the right cocktail parties, even if it costs $125m of someone else's money.
Mediawatcher wrote: In 9 months revenues are up 1% and the EBITDA increased primarily due to the mix of titles. I don't see any attribution to Harlequin and Harlequin generated more than $100 million in EBITDA before they sold it with half the earnings. I don't know if book publishing is a growing business (I have my doubts) and the mistake was not selling it earlier when it was worth considerably more. They compounded the mistake by purchasing a non-cashing producing asset in VerticalScope and locking up the investment for 5 years. Time will tell on the wisdom of this investment, but to date it appears to be holding up well.
Prem Watsa is a billionaire and a Torstar shareholder. Rupert Murdoch is indeed a billionaire but didn't make his billions at HarperCollins. Both men own big interests in newspaper companies and hopefully Mr. Watsa will do a better job of looking after the interests of Torstar shareholders than the current gang of misfits.