Bad News Piles Up for New York Times

Meanwhile, New York Times is also a family-controlled company, and it has felt the wrath of public shareholders amid its refusal to sell troubled assets, like The Boston Globe, while its stock has languished.

The Ochs-Sulzberger family trust controls the company by holding its Class B shares, which make up only 0.6% of its total shares outstanding. Meanwhile, they control 70% of the company's voting rights, while the vast majority of shareholders control just 30% of the votes.

At its annual shareholders meeting last spring, roughly 42% of the company's Class A shareholders, the public investors who own the vast majority of its equity, voted to withhold support for the Times' four Class A directors. That marks an increase from the 30% that voted to withhold support last year.

The results amounted to a rebuke of the Times from its institutional shareholder base, which was led by Hassan Elmasry, the portfolio manager with Morgan Stanley Investments. He criticized the company's management, saying it's unaccountable for its mistakes due to its lopsided governance structure. Elmasry called on the company to abandon the dual-class share structure.

The Class B shareholders, who are allied with Times chairman and publisher Arther Sulzberger Jr., were unanimous in their support for the company's nine Class B directors, rendering Wall Street's revolt against the company's corporate structure as little more than a symbolic gesture. Later, Elmasry sold his fund's 7.2% stake in the company.