Fresh off the press
The Los Angeles Times will soon become a publicly traded company, joining The New York Times (NOW), The Wall Street Journal (He) and USA Today (GCI) in offering its shares to everyday investors. Billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong made the announcement on The Daily Showdescribing the move as a way for the paper to become democratized. “Whether you’re right, left, Democrat, Republican, you’re an American,” he told host Jon Stewart. “So the opportunity for us is to provide a paper that is the voices of the people.”
Backdrop: The Los Angeles Times has been bleeding money, and lots of it. Soon-Shiong bought the paper, along with the San Diego Union-Tribunefor nearly half a billion dollars in 2018, but it hasn’t been a profitable investment. The Times reportedly lost $50M in 2024 as paid subscriptions slumped to just over 300K, while Soon-Shiong offloaded the San Diego paper to MediaNews Group in 2023. Complicating matters has been the backlash Soon-Shiong received while steering the newspaper in a new direction.
Things first went south after he blocked the editorial board from endorsing Elizabeth Warren in the Democratic presidential primary in 2020, but allowed the backing of Joe Biden in the general election. The struggles only continued as ideological differences between staff and ownership became magnified and really hit a breaking point after Soon-Shiong blocked the editorial board’s endorsement of Kamala Harris in 2024, while expressing a desire to incorporate more moderate and conservative voices. That led to a wave of subscription cancellations and high-profile resignations, as well as several rounds of newsroom layoffs.
As advertised? The new strategy shift to go public will happen over the next yearthough it may not be a traditional one in terms of listed shares on the stock market. The Times ownership structure would be similar to the NFL’s Green Bay Packers, according to Soon-Shiong. If replicated, that would give the public a say on the board and reveal its financials, but the largely symbolic shares wouldn’t be transferable, hold any intrinsic market value, or pay a dividend.