Activist investor seeks Salon stake to make run at TheStreet

thestreet_logo_black_bg_front_lead An activist investor is seeking to purchase a controlling stake in Salon Media and use that to make a run at financial news site TheStreet.com, reports Keith Kelly of the New York Post.

Kelly writes, “Spear Point would then use its control of Salon to make a run at Jim Cramer’s TheStreet.com, one person familiar with the plans said.

“TheStreet is a publicly traded company, and Spear Point, which owns a 4.9 percent stake, has been lobbying for board seats.

“It won’t take much cash for Spear Point to buy a controlling stake in Salon. The 22-year-old digital publishing enterprise, which has been plagued by high-level turnover on the executive and editorial side — as well as declining revenue — has a market capitalization of only $6.1 million and a stock price of 8 cents a share.

“At its IPO in 1999, its stock was $10.50 a share with a market cap of $105 million.

“Spear Point has been quietly snapping up Salon Media Group shares in recent weeks, sources said.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.