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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