Complete Story
07/17/2018
How much is your newspaper worth? Brokers have new models sometimes
Six-year-old digital business news site Quartz, with only spotty profits and annual revenue of roughly $30 million, sold just over a week ago for $75 to $110 million. The payout depends on how well it does meeting growth goals.
Which suggests a comparison: How much would a newspaper with $30 million in revenues fetch in today's market? Assuming that it makes 10 percent profit on an operating basis (probably typical), maybe $11 to $13 million.
I bounced the question off two leading U.S. newspaper brokers and Mike Reed, CEO of New Media Investment, the parent of the GateHouse Media chain, which has laid out roughly $1 billion for acquisitions over the last five years. All three said that the going rate is a 3.5 to 5 times multiple of the operating profit.
But what if the paper in question instead has operated at a slight loss for a year or two?
