Private equity makes a big newspaper play
TPG Capital and Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan have revised their takeover offer for Australia's Fairfax Media. The firms originally bid A$2.2 billion to acquire Fairfax's metro newspaper and real estate classifieds unit, but now are offering A$2.76 billion for the entire company (which actually lowers the overall enterprise value a bit from the initial approach).
Why it matters: Private equity firms have avoided mass-market print media for a while now, but TPG is betting that the value of Fairfax's online real estate classifieds business (called Domain) is worth taking on not just the big metro dailies, but also a mishmash of smaller, regional papers. If TPG is successful, the big question for Australian news consumers, will be how long TPG can stomach that particular headache.