Website stake could affect Knight Ridder sale

[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Joshua Chaffin and James Politi]
The sale of Knight Ridder, the second-largest US newspaper chain, could be complicated by its part ownership of CareerBuilder.com, an online recruitment site, according to people familiar with the bidding. Knight Ridder owns one-third of CareerBuilder along with rival newspaper publishers Gannett and Tribune. The site has grown to become a leader in the online recruitment field, and is considered a successful example of newspaper companies’ efforts to adapt to the Internet. However, the partnership agreement includes a change-of-control provision, which gives the other partners the opportunity to buy out Knight Ridder’s interest in the event of a sale. Those legal considerations could make it difficult for the private equity investors mulling bids for Knight Ridder to evaluate the company, which owns 32 daily newspapers, including the San Jose Mercury News and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/accf00b8-9e5f-11da-b641-0000779e2340.html
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