NY Times Cuts Its Quartely Dividend to $0.06 from $0.23

They also report ad revs dn 16.2% in October. The New York Times Company's Board of Directors today declared a quarterly dividend of $.06 per share on the Company's Class A and Class B common stock, down from $.23 per share in the third quarter of 2008. The dividend is payable on December 15, 2008, to shareholders of record on December 1, 2008. Re divi cut - "This was a difficult but necessary decision that will provide us with greater financial flexibility in these uncertain economic times," said Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., chairman of the Company. "Most industries are feeling the need to conserve cash and ours is as well, particularly given the secular challenges we face…We expect that this steep cut in the dividend, coupled with our other actions, will help us decrease debt and improve the liquidity of the Company, a prudent measure in this operating environment."

Comments From JPMorgan Analyst Alexia Quadrani: October revenues show no improvement in trends. Total revenue declined 9.4%, with a 16.2% drop in advertising revenues. Similar to its peers, print trends have shown no improvement from recent months. During its 3Q conference call, management commented that it would review its dividend policy at the next Board meeting to ensure that it was prudently managing its balance sheet. With a quarterly dividend now of $0.06 per share, down from $0.23 previously, NYT will free up roughly $100M in cash on an annual basis for debt reduction or other investments. The dividend cut also allows the company to avoid further near-term staff cuts that could undermine the quality of its papers and impair its brand. We remain cautious on NYT's outlook given the challenging newspaper ad market, and increased pressures likely in NYC from a significantly weakening local economy. In our view, the possibility of a sale offsets the impact of continued fundamental weakness expected in coming months, supporting our Neutral rating.