Boston Properties Founder Mort Zuckerman Selling New York Daily News
Mort Zuckerman, co-founder of Boston Properties, has agreed to sell the New York Daily News.
Zuckerman purchased the newspaper for $36M in 1993, but sold it to media conglomerate tronc for $1, plus the assumption of liabilities, the Chicago Tribune reports. Formerly The Tribune Co., tronc owns the Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.
Zuckerman still owns U.S. News and World Report as part of his holdings, but the Daily News has suffered, like so many other print outlets in the internet age, seeing drops in circulation and layoffs in recent years. Zuckerman held the titles of owner and publisher at the Daily News, and Editor-in-Chief Arthur Browne will assume the role of publisher until he retires at the end of 2017.
Although the price tag amounts to relieving Zuckerman of his pension and personnel obligations, tronc's purchase of the Daily News may be a real estate investment, according to Crain's. The transaction includes the land underneath the paper's plant in Jersey City, as well as a 49% stake in the neighboring 25-acre plot of buildable land bordering Liberty State Park.
