DealBook: Treasury Sells $3 Billion Stake in Ally Financial

News Corp. Sells a Group of Small Local Publications

The collection of small newspapers and niche publications, known as the Dow Jones Local Media Group, will be owned by an affiliate of the Fortress Investment Group, News Corporation said in a news release. The publications will be managed by GateHouse Media, the newspaper publisher based outside Rochester.

The details of the transaction were not released, but the money involved was evidently relatively small, because if it had been bigger (or, in financial terms, material to the company) News Corporation would have had to disclose more financial information.

Christine Frank, managing director of Waller Capital Partners, which advised Dow Jones, said “there was significant interest among strategic and financial buyers” for the local publications.

“This is a testament to the growing number of buyers for newspaper assets and these properties in particular,” she said.

The company’s interest in selling the local publications was reported in April by The Wall Street Journal. The Journal and the collection of local publications were both included in the 2007 deal in which News Corporation acquired Dow Jones. Shortly afterward, News Corporation tried for the first time to sell the local media assets, but it pulled back in 2008 because of unfavorable market conditions.

The same logic guided the decision to sell now: the community papers — like The Cape Cod Times, The Herald in Portsmouth, N.H., and The Daily Tidings in Ashland, Ore. — and the small magazines don’t fit into the company’s larger framework.

“We are confident that the papers will prosper under the new owners, but they were not strategically consistent with the emerging portfolio of the new News,” Robert Thomson, the News Corporation chief executive, said in a statement.

In June most of News Corporation’s television and film units were split off into a separate company called 21st Century Fox, leaving News Corporation as the publishing arm of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.

Bits Blog: Vintage Apple-1 Sells for Record $671,400

Apple’s stock price may be well down from its peaks last year, but the market for the company’s oldest computers continues to set records.

Emmanuel Dunand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Sotheby’s sold an Apple-1 for $374,500 last year. A few months later in Germany, one sold for $640,000.

An Apple-1 computer, made in 1976, sold for a record $671,400 on Saturday at an auction in Germany, including all fees and taxes, said Uwe Breker, the German auctioneer.

That surpassed the $640,000 record for an Apple-1, set last November at a sale at the same auction house in Cologne, Germany, Auction Team Breker. The fall 2012 sale was a sharp rise from the previous record price for an Apple-1 of $374,500, set in June 2012 at Sotheby’s in New York.

The high prices paid for the machines seem to be explained by the combination of scarcity, a fascination with the early history of the computer age, and the mystique of Apple and its founders, Steven P. Jobs and Stephen G. Wozniak. And some irrational exuberance in the prices, for a machine that can do very little and originally sold for $666 (about $2,700 in current dollars).

“This really confirms the value of Apple-1’s,” Mr.Breker said in an interview on Saturday.

The buyer, Mr. Breker said, was a wealthy entrepreneur from the Far East, who wishes to remain anonymous.

Part of the allure of the earliest Apple machines, Mr. Breker said, is not what they are, but what they represent. “It is a superb symbol of the American dream,” he said. “You have two college dropouts from California who pursued an idea and a dream, and that dream becomes one of the most admired, successful and valuable companies in the world.”

The anonymous buyer, who can afford to spend more than $670,000 on an old computer, seems to have enjoyed some version of the entrepreneurial dream come true, as well.

In an e-mail last week, and a later telephone interview, Mr. Breker said the original owner of the Apple-1 on sale was Fred Hatfield, a former major league baseball player in the 1950s, who died in 1998. I included that account in an article published on Friday.

Early Saturday morning, I received an e-mail from another Fred Hatfield, a retired electrical engineer living in New Orleans, saying he was the original owner of the Apple-1 that was auctioned on Saturday. Mr. Hatfield attached an image of a letter, dated Jan, 18, 1978 and addressed to him, signed by Mr. Jobs.

Mr. Hatfield had complained about the lack of software for the Apple-1, also commonly known as Apple I, and Apple had a trade-in program for Apple-1’s. The letter offered to exchange an Apple II computer for the older machine, and to send a check for $400 as a further incentive.

When I called Mr. Breker on Saturday, I asked where he got his information that the original owner was Fred Hatfield, the ballplayer. Mr. Breker said he recalled that he was told that by Mike Willegal, who maintains an online registry of Apple-1’s. Mr. Willegal said on Saturday that he did not recall saying Fred Hatfield, the Apple-1 owner, was the former professional baseball player.

In any case, Mr. Hatfield in New Orleans said he held onto his Apple-1 until earlier this year. Then, a young man from Texas in the software business, whom Mr. Hatfield would not identify, inquired. They negotiated a price — $40,000.

The Apple-1, Mr. Hatfield said, was not then in working condition. The buyer apparently put in some new chips and wiring, since it was a working model when it sold on Saturday. After picking up the machine, Mr. Hatfield said, the young man flew off to California to get the machine signed by Mr. Wozniak, who designed the Apple-1. That also enhanced its value presumably.

Told the of sale price, Mr. Hatfield said, “My God.” Then, he added, “Best to him. He’s the one who fixed it up and figured the best way to sell it for all that money. Evidently, he’s very good at this.”

Mr. Hatfield, 84, gives historic tours of New Orleans, his hometown. Not surprisingly, he’s a jazz fan. He said he planned to use his proceeds to pay for some good dinners and nights of music on Frenchmen Street.

“I figure I might as well enjoy the money I got from that old machine,” he said.

Lagardère Sells EADS Stake for $3 Billion

PARIS — Lagardère, the French media conglomerate, said Tuesday it has sold its 7.4 percent stake in European Aeronautic Defense & Space, beginning the long-anticipated overhaul in the ownership structure of EADS, the parent of Airbus.

Lagardère said it raised €2.3 billion, or $3 billion, through the sale, with EADS spending €500 million to buy 1.6 percent of its own shares — a purchase that fell short of some analysts’ expectations.

Société Générale and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which managed the sale, said 61.1 million EADS shares were placed at €37.35 each. That was a 3.5 percent discount to Monday’s closing price of €38.71.

“Many investors we spoke to believed EADS would acquire €1 billion to €1.5 billion of the stock being placed by Lagardère,” JPMorgan Cazenove analysts said in a research note.

“It is unclear why EADS is not taking a bigger share of this placing but it is possible that EADS is prioritizing increasing its free float over the accretion of a buyback,” the analysts said.

EADS may also want to “retain buyback firepower’ to support its share price over the next 18 months,” the analysts added.

Lagardère, whose holdings include the book publisher Hachette and magazines like Elle and Paris Match, has said it plans to use the proceeds mostly to pay down debt and return cash to shareholders, likely via a special dividend.

Lagardère’s exit from EADS will be followed by the withdrawal of Daimler, the German automaker, paving the way for the aerospace group to have a larger free-market float with combined government stakes capped at 28 percent.

Since EADS was created in 2000, the French and German governments had an effective veto over the company’s strategic management decisions. Under the new ownership structure, France and Germany will each hold as 12 percent stake and Spain will have 4 percent.

DealBook: Lagardère Sells Stake in EADS for $3 Billion

PARIS — Lagardère, the French media conglomerate, said Tuesday it has sold its 7.4 percent stake in European Aeronautic Defense & Space, beginning the long-anticipated overhaul in the ownership structure of EADS, the parent of Airbus.

Lagardère said it raised €2.3 billion, or $3 billion, through the sale, with EADS spending €500 million to buy 1.6 percent of its own shares — a purchase that fell short of some analysts’ expectations.

Société Générale and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which managed the sale, said 61.1 million EADS shares were placed at €37.35 each. That was a 3.5 percent discount to Monday’s closing price of €38.71.

“Many investors we spoke to believed EADS would acquire €1 billion to €1.5 billion of the stock being placed by Lagardère,” JPMorgan Cazenove analysts said in a research note.

“It is unclear why EADS is not taking a bigger share of this placing but it is possible that EADS is prioritizing increasing its free float over the accretion of a buyback,” the analysts said.

EADS may also want to “retain buyback firepower’ to support its share price over the next 18 months,” the analysts added.

Lagardère, whose holdings include the book publisher Hachette and magazines like Elle and Paris Match, has said it plans to use the proceeds mostly to pay down debt and return cash to shareholders, likely via a special dividend.

Lagardère’s exit from EADS will be followed by the withdrawal of Daimler, the German automaker, paving the way for the aerospace group to have a larger free-market float with combined government stakes capped at 28 percent.

Since EADS was created in 2000, the French and German governments had an effective veto over the company’s strategic management decisions. Under the new ownership structure, France and Germany will each hold as 12 percent stake and Spain will have 4 percent.