At the risk of sounding like a broken record, there is yet more bad news for Lee Enterprises, the newspaper chain that owns the Billings Gazette and papers in Missoula, Butte, Helena and Hamilton.
InvestorPlace.com has a story today headlined “9 Media Stocks to Sell Now.” Each of the nine rates a “D” (“sell”) or “F” (“strong sell”). Seven of the stocks were downgraded to “D” this week from “C” last week.
Lee Enterprises is one of the two downgraded from a D to an F. Here’s the paragraph on Lee: “Lee Enterprises, Incorporated’s (LEE) rating weakens this week, dropping to a F versus last week’s D. Lee Enterprises, Incorporated owns various daily newspapers and a joint interest in several others. The company also gets F’s in earnings revisions and earnings momentum.”
If it rates an F even after all the cost-cutting measures of the past several years, cuts that even the most distracted readers of its newspapers must be vaguely aware of, what else can it possibly do to get out of the hole it’s in?
I certainly don’t have the answer and neither, I suspect, does anyone at Lee.
