NY Times Looks to Mexican Billionaire for Cash

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Times, Mexican billionaire in talks

Carlos Slim, who holds 6.4% stake now, is in talks to make big investment in New York Times Co.

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- The New York Times Co. is in talks to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, a source told Reuters Saturday, a move that would give the ailing newspaper publisher a critical cash infusion to pay its debt.

An investment by Slim, the world's second-richest man according to Forbes magazine, could also be a vote of confidence in the Ochs-Sulzberger family, whose control of the Times for more than a century has been threatened by changes shaking the foundations of the U.S. newspaper business.

The Times, which owns its namesake newspaper and The Boston Globe as well as other papers in the United States, is grappling with a decline in advertising revenue on a level that it and other newspaper publishers have never seen before.

According to the source, the Times might give Slim, who already owns a 6.4% stake in the company, preferred stock with no voting rights but with an annual dividend.

The Times is planning a special board meeting next week about the investment, the source said. The news was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. A New York Times spokeswoman declined to comment.

The money could help the Times pay off $400 million in debt in a credit facility that will retire in May.