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the Boston Globe Times Co. abandons plan to sell the paper Oct 15, 2009 The New York Times Co. never seemed fully committed to selling it, so the news came as little surprise: The Boston Globe is off the market. The Times Co. had been shopping the money-losing paper for several months but was apparently unimpressed by the bids that came in, months after the parent company threatened to shut down the Boston paper. Two main bidders had emerged, one led by former Globe employee Stephen Taylor and the other by Platinum Equity, the company that bought the San Diego Union-Tribune earlier this year. Both reportedly submitted preliminary bids of around $35 million for the Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. To put that in perspective, the Times Co. said some months ago that the Globe was on track to lose $85 million this year. Rumors emerged in recent days that Platinum was backing off its bid, unconvinced that it could find a financially feasible arrangement, while the backing for Taylor's group fell into question. Still, many had doubts whether the Times Co. would have sold the papers to any bidder. The company was careful to talk about it only as a potential sale, and some saw it as more of a negotiating tactic than anything else. Word that the Times Co. had retained Goldman Sachs to field bids on the papers broke shortly after the Globe's largest union rejected a new contract in June. The Boston Newspaper Guild later ratified a contract after management instituted a 23 percent across-the-board pay cut. Globe unions eventually agreed to concessions that helped the paper slash $20 million in expenses. But there's still some lingering hostility between NYT Co. bosses and Boston employees following the rancorous negotiations, as evidenced by a sometimes contentious recent meeting between Globe workers and publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.
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