A fourth suitor may join the bidding war over Newsday, the suburban tabloid put on the auction block by the financially-beleaguered Tribune Company.
Jared Kushner, boy publisher of the New York Observer, and son of New Jersey real-estate mogul Charles Kushner, is inquiring about the Long Island-based newspaper, according to today’s Wall Street Journal.
Among New York media moguls, the 27-year-old may be considered an upstart, but he has deep pockets. In July, 2006, he spent $10 million to buy the money-losing Observer while still getting his MBA at New York University, telling the New York Times that the opportunity to buy a newspaper doesn’t come along very often.
Kushner joins a field of giants who are eyeing the still-profitable tabloid, including billionaire magnate Rupert Murdoch, publisher of the New York Post, real-estate developer Mortimer Zuckerman, owner of the New York Daily News and James Dolan, whose family owns Cablevision.
The magic number sought for Newsday is upwards of $500 million, as Tribune Chairman Sam Zell struggles to stay afloat after his highly leveraged purchase of the company last year. Besides Newsday, Tribune owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Baltimore Sun, among other newspapers, as well as local television stations and the Chicago Cubs baseball team.
Kushner, a grandson of Holocaust survivors, is the scion of a real-estate, banking and insurance empire valued at more than $1 billion built by his father Charles. But the elder Kushner suffered a spectacular fall from grace several years ago. He spent nearly a year in jail after pleading guilty to 18 counts of tax evasion, admitting, among other things, to hiring a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law and sending a videotape of the encounter to his sister to retaliate for her cooperation with federal investigators.
Jared Kushner is the only one of his parents’ four children to work at the family company, where he is a principal.
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1 Comments
#1. Obama 08 04.03.2008
If Kushner was so smart, why did he buy a newspaper when he could have started one from scratch? Why stick yourself with a teetering brand, when now is the time to invent one’s brand anew in this brave new world of new media, particularly if you have a billion bucks to cover early mistakes?
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