Description
McClatchy is an American publishing company incorporated under Delaware's General Corporation Law and based in Sacramento, California. It operates 29 daily newspapers in fourteen states and has an average weekday circulation of 1.6 million and Sunday circulation of 2.4 million. In 2006, it purchased Knight Ridder, which at the time was the second-largest newspaper company in the United States (Gannett was, and remains, the largest). In addition to its daily newspapers, McClatchy also operates several websites and community papers, as well as a news agency, McClatchy DC Bureau, focused on political news from Washington, D.C.
In February 2020, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, intending to reorganize and complete the bankruptcy process within a few months. In July 2020, Chatham Asset Management, a hedge fund, won the auction to buy McClatchy for US$ 312 million.
History
The company originated with The Daily Bee, first published in Sacramento, California, on February 3, 1857, by Native American writer Rollin Ridge. James McClatchy joined Ridge as a partner and took over as editor. Known as a supporter of the people's interests against corporations and corrupt politicians, McClatchy made The Bee a bastion of progressive reformism. Upon McClatchy's death in 1883, the paper's leadership passed to James' son, Charles Kenny McClatchy, who with his brother Valentine Stuart, bought out the Ridge family's interests. The two modernized the paper with the formation of McClatchy Newspapers through the founding of the Fresno Bee in 1922 and acquisition of the Modesto Bee in 1924. C.K. McClatchy's legacy to the region has been memorialized in the C.K. McClatchy High School in Sacramento, which opened in 1937, about a year after his death.
For most of its history, the company was focused on the newspaper business in California's Sacramento Valley and San Joaquin Valley. In 1978, the 4th generation Charles K. McClatchy took over the company and guided the media company toward the modern publicly owned The McClatchy Company through further acquisitions of out-of-state newspapers, Anchorage Daily News in Anchorage, Alaska, and the Tri-City Herald in Kennewick, Washington.
McClatchy also acquired then-ABC affiliate KOVR from Metromedia in 1965. The company's own Modesto Bee reported the sale of the station. It was sold to The Outlet Company in 1978 and today exists as a CBS owned-and-operated station.
In 1990, McClatchy acquired three dailies in South Carolina: The Herald in Rock Hill, The Island Packet in Hilton Head, and The Beaufort Gazette of Beaufort. In 1995, it acquired The News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina, and in 1998, it bought the Star Tribune of Minneapolis.
In January 2004, McClatchy bought the Merced Sun-Star of Merced, and five affiliated non-dailies in California's San Joaquin Valley.
The company's biggest acquisition occurred on June 27, 2006, when McClatchy purchased Knight Ridder. Because McClatchy was so much smaller than Knight Ridder at the time, one observer equated the deal as "a dolphin swallowing a small whale." The purchase price of $40 and 0.5118 shares of McClatchy Class A stock per share was valued in total at about $4 billion in cash and stock. The company also assumed $2 billion in debt. This purchase added 20 newspapers to the company stable and the immediate sale (over the next five weeks) of 12 publications including the St. Paul Pioneer Press, San Jose Mercury News and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Those sales were completed on August 2, 2006. This acquisition would be cited as the major cause of McClatchy's later troubles - McClatchy overpaid for Knight Ridder by buying at the "top of the market", and the immense debt taken on to fuel the purchase would be a millstone around the neck of the combined company. Additionally, McClatchy did not keep on any of Knight Ridder's digital division or corporate staff, despite the growing prominence of the Internet and Knight Ridder having a well-respected effort in the space at the time.
The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, acquired in 1998 and sold in 2007 to the private-equity firm Avista Capital Partners for $555 million, had the highest circulation of all McClatchy newspapers.
The company also owns a portfolio of digital assets, including 15.0% of CareerBuilder, LLC, which operates CareerBuilder.com; 25.6% of Classified Ventures, LLC, a company that offers classified websites, such as the auto website Cars.com; and 33.3% of HomeFinder, LLC, which operates the online real estate website HomeFinder.com. McClatchy also owns 49.5% of the voting stock and 70.6% of the nonvoting stock of The Seattle Times Company.
In January 2017, former Yahoo! and EarthLink executive Craig Forman was appointed as its new president and chief executive officer (CEO). Forman, a private investor and McClatchy board member, succeeded Patrick Talamantes, who was CEO the previous four years.
The descendants of C.K. McClatchy still own a controlling interest in the McClatchy Company and are represented by the 6th generation Kevin McClatchy as chairman of the Board of Directors.
In February 2019, Forman emailed all staff to say about 10 percent of the newspaper chain's employees would be offered voluntary buyouts.
On February 13, 2020, McClatchy filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company cited pension obligations and excessive debt as the primary reasons for the filing.
The McClatchy Company and 54 affiliated companies filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
