New York Times

In a quest to "improve" transparency into its business, the New York Times will cease providing monthly sales updates beginning this month, and only give clarity on a quarterly basis said the CEO on a phone call this morning... Next quarter we assume this practice will be adjusted to providing any sorts of updates to once a decade.

In a quest to "improve" transparency into its business, the New York Times will cease providing monthly sales updates beginning this month, and only give clarity on a quarterly basis said the CEO on a phone call this morning... Next quarter we assume this practice will be adjusted to providing any sorts of updates to once a decade.

In one of those nauseating mirror-in-a-mirror type of news events, NYT reports that the NYT is in advanced sale-leaseback talks with W.P. Carey.

According to the SEC filing, Carlos is now the proud owner of 25,754,000 shares of Class A NYT stock, or 16.21% of the outstanding stock.

Most interestingly among the negative covenants listed:

• Creating liens on any properties
• Incur additional debt prior to March 2010, if pro forma leverage is higher than 2.75x
• Engage in sale/leaseback transactions, with up to $225 million carveout for NYT HQ building
• Merge or consolidate with other assets
• Transfer or sell assets, with any sales over $10 million have to be used to pay down debt

There is also a 101% change of control put.

The WSJ reports ($$$ link) that Mexican billionaire (or is that millionaire now, we need to double check) Carlos Slim Helu may bail out the New York Times.

The WSJ reports ($$$ link) that Mexican billionaire (or is that millionaire now, we need to double check) Carlos Slim Helu may bail out the New York Times.