Times Sells Stake in TheStreet.com

Tuesday, January 9th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) â€” The New York Times has sold nearly all of its minority stake in TheStreet.com, an ailing financial news provider, and will record a loss of about $12 million against fourth-quarter earnings, the company said Monday.

The announcement came just a day after the Times said it would trim the staff in its own online operations by 17 percent, or 69 jobs, in hopes of making the division profitable more quickly. The company blamed a slowdown in advertising for the cuts.

The New York Times had also operated a joint newsroom with TheStreet.com, but it shut down that operation last November. Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said the company sold its stake because it ``no longer had a strategic interest'' in TheStreet.com.

The Times had bought its stake in TheStreet.com in February of 1999 for $3 million in cash and $12 million in advertising credits, Mathis said. The company sold essentially all of its stake, which made up about 5 percent of TheStreet.com, for $3.2 million on Jan. 4.

The Times still owns 125,000 shares of TheStreet.com, but Mathis said the rules restricting trading volume prevented the company from selling its entire stake.

Michael Golden, vice chairman of The New York Times Co., remains a board member of TheStreet.com. Mathis declined to discuss whether he would remain.

The sale marks the latest retrenchment of major media companies in the online arena. Just last week News Corp., the media conglomerate controlled by Rupert Murdoch, said it would eliminate about 200 jobs and shut down its online division as it scales back the web sites for Fox News Channel and the Fox network.

TheStreet.com has cut its own staff and shut down its U.K. operation as it struggles to become profitable. In the nine month period ending in September, it lost $37 million on revenues of $19 million.

Like many Internet companies, TheStreet.com's shares have lost most of their value compared to their highs of last year. TheStreet.com rose 6 cents to close at $2.50 in regular trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market while The New York Times fell $1.13 to $41.25 on the New York Stock Exchange.

TheStreet.com was founded by former hedge fund manager Jim Cramer and Martin Peretz, publisher of The New Republic.