Forbes.com: Ronald Burkle: Money is tight and so that means...

Beverly Hills, CA -It's always heartening to see a hard-working billionaire.

Ron Burkle, managing partner of the Yucaipa Companies, is a ranking member of Forbes' billionaires list--but he clearly isn't resting on his bank account. He is actively looking for investment opportunities in companies--including traditional media companies--that are undervalued and could be juicy investments.

Along with fellow Forbes-ranked billionaire Eli Broad, Burkle considered buying the Los Angeles Times. "We thought it would be great to have a newspaper in L.A. that likes L.A.," Burkle quipped at Forbes 2nd annual Meet conference.

Complete Coverage: Forbes' Meet Conference

Burkle also talked with the labor union at the Wall Street Journal when that group tried to put together a counterbid to Rupert Murdoch's offer for Dow Jones.

Neither of those deals came to pass. But Burkle did snap up Prime Media, which controls something like 90% of the retail space for magazines at checkout counters throughout the U.S.

Burkle was upbeat about Microsoft's decision to buy a stake in Facebook: "The Facebook valuation became real today because Microsoft took an investment."

Burkle was later joined on a panel about private equity by three other long-time investors. All agreed that the Microsoft-Facebook alliance had great upsides for both of those companies.

But don't expect to see more big deals, the investors warned. Last year's wave of leveraged buyouts is over, Burkle said.

Foreign investors, by contrast, are looking for investments, pointed out James Montgomery, chief executive of investment firm, Montgomery & Co. "We see a lot of Japanese and Europeans looking at the U.S. From their perspective the fact that the dollar is half off makes it a good buying opportunity," he said.

Burkle, who has spent time studying most of the big media companies, was scathing in his assessment of the newspaper firms. "The newspaper industry really missed its opportunity," he said. "They could have controlled all the [big content] sites," such as job sites.

Instead, too many newspaper owners were obsessed with their quarterly returns, he said. "Their plans were to cut a few inches from their papers, every few years."

Hardly a recipe for growth.

http://www.forbes.com/facesinthenews/2007/10/24/burkle-broad-investment-tech-cx_ec_1024autofaces04.html

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Forbes.com: Buyout Alert: Could The New York Times Be Next?

Beverly Hills, CA -Dow Jones changed hands faster than anyone might have imagined. Could The New York Times be next on the takeover list?

Forbes editor Matt Miller asked the four investors on the private equity panel at Forbes 2nd annual MEET conference whether they felt that The New York Times Co. was ripe for a takeover. Three out of four said yes.

"It's doable from a financial point of view," said Ronald Burkle, who was linked to a possible white knight counterbid to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.'s for Dow Jones. "It's not as big as deal as you'd think."

Complete Coverage: Forbes' Meet Conference

The obvious question: just how much time has Burkle spent thinking about the Times?

Burkle pointed out that, unlike Dow Jones, the family that owns the New York Times has been actively engaged in managing the property.

Even so, James Montgomery, chief executive of investment firm, Montgomery & Co., agreed that the Times brand is undervalued.

But rather than a buyout, there are a number of big companies that could be stalking for a content partner. "An equity swap would be one way to acquire the Times, pointed out Tom Westdyk, managing director of CIT Communications. Possible candidates: Comcast, Disney or even Microsoft.

Thomas Tull, chairman of Legendary Pictures, was the only nay-sayer. "I don't think it will happen in the next 12 months," he said. But he conceded that he hasn't spent much time thinking about the deal. "It's a great asset. There's a lot you can do with it," he said, somewhat wistfully.

One other media company that the panelists all agreed was undervalued--but tricky to consider is Playboy. Pornography generates huge revenues yet investors are still a bit squeamish about whether that's how they want to spend their money.

The climate for big investments may be chilling but there's still an appetite for companies that can crank out revenue. As Miller pointed out: "No matter how cool a new media company sounds, it's all a pipe dream unless you can make money."

Read The MEET Blog for the latest from the conference,

http://www.forbes.com/facesinthenews/2007/10/24/nytimes-buyout-burkle-tech-cx_ec_1024autofaces03.html

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Play It Again, Bill

Burlingame, Calif. --Few companies these days are as doggedly persistent as Microsoft--even in businesses that thrive on flair more than diligence. Case in point? Handheld music players.

Late Tuesday, Microsoft took the covers off the second generation of its Zune digital music player. That means Microsoft will offer consumers four classes of Zunes by mid-November, packing between four and 80 gigabytes of data and costing from $150 to $250.

Microsoft is also quietly retiring what managers delicately call the "definitely polarizing" brown player from the lineup. New Zunes will come in red, pink, green and black. All include an FM tuner and wireless connectivity for sharing music.

Even Microsoft concedes that its first Zune was, at best, a placeholder. Critics compared the devices unfavorably to iPods. Consumer enthusiasm was lukewarm. Microsoft sold about 1.2 million Zunes between November and June. By contrast, Apple sold more than 41 million iPods during roughly the same period.

This time around, the Zune is a tried and true Microsoft design. The erstwhile software giant has gotten rid of the first generation of Zune hardware blueprints (created by Toshiba) and reworked the device's design from scratch. That makes Zune one of only four devices that Microsoft does in-house. (The others are keyboards, computer mice and Microsoft's Xbox game machine.)

Software is key to the Zune's success, Microsoft figures. The company has poured great energy into developing a social-networking feature called "Zune Social." The application allows users to automatically share recent playlists with friends and peek at what they've been listening to. The application will be open to non-Zuners as well through existing social-networking sites.

Microsoft crafted a better deal with music companies, too. Zune owners will be able to share songs wirelessly with multiple friends. Friends can listen to a tune three times--over any time period--for free. Consumers will then get a message nudging them to buy the recording.

Even with all the updates and improvements, analysts yawned at the new Zunes. Van Baker, an analyst with market research firm Gartner says the Zune, "looks strangely like the [Apple] Nano, a couple of generations ago." He adds that Zune Social will be great for users, but is unlikely to make people drop their iPods. Microsoft might be able to woo customers away from other competing music players, including Sandisk, Creative Technology and Samsung, which together have about 16% of the market, according to the NPD Group.

So prepare for a deluge of advertisements heralding how Zunes will help you build circles of friends through music. No one will be hoping the promise comes true more than Microsoft.

http://www.forbes.com/technology/2007/10/03/digital-music-players-tech-cx_ec_1003zune.html

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