Tribune Publishing, the publisher of the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, Hartford Courant and several other newspapers, got off to a slow start on its first day of trading after being spun out of Tribune Media.
Its stock on Tuesday dropped 4.4 percent to close at $21.15.
CEO Jack Griffin appeared unperturbed by the decline on its first day of trading.
“With respect to how the stock trades on any given day, it’ s not a big deal,” he said, saying he is more interesting in his getting “a good reception in the debt and equity markets” during a recent two-week road show.
Hamed Khorsand, an analyst at BWS Financial, said he thinks Wall Street is discounting the stock too heavily.
“I have a $50 price target,” he said, saying the risks stated by the bears are overstated.
Tribune recently inked a new five-year affiliation deal with Cars.com, which Khorsand said brought in $34 million in cash flow last year.
The company went out the door with $350 million in total debt — $275 million of that going to former parent Tribune Media.
Tribune Publishing has already whetted its appetite for some small acquisitions, snapping up two small papers in Maryland.
“In terms of a growth strategy, it is meaningful but not necessary,” Griffin said of future buys.
The CEO would not rule out any layoffs to the 7,600-strong payroll.
“We have to conform to the changing revenue base of the business,” he said. “Ongoing cost management is part of the job.”
Griffin said the company is rolling out new web re-launches modeled after the May relaunch of the Los Angeles Times Web site.
Tribune brass are forming an ad agency with 100 dedicated staffers to help local advertisers design digital ads, said Griffin, noting that the company has “the benefit of being a mostly local company with national scale.”