Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Shuffling about on NYT board

The grey lady, the New York Times, is shuffling her own board membership around, in anticipation of a proxy fight at the annual meeting scheduled for April.

They presumably want to offer the strongest slate they can, and it appears that Brenda Barnes and James Kilts don't count as among the strongest in their eyes.

Of course, press releases never put things that way. The good news is that this time we're also being spared the usual pap about how Mr. Kilts and Ms Barnes have simultaneously decided they need to spend more time with their respective families. We're told simply that they won't stand for re-election.

Instead, Dawn Lepore and Robert Denham will join the incumbents on the slate. In a statement, the chairman, Mr. Sulzberger, said: "The skills, expertise and leadership qualities of these two nominees will greatly benefit our company during this time of tremendous change in the media world."

Meanwhile Harbinger and Firebrand between them now own 10% of the company's equity. Representatives of those two funds apparently met with Sulzberger Friday, but the subsequent manuveuring would certainly seem to indicate that nothing was resolved.

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