The Los Angeles Times’ private stock sale has all the hallmarks of a scramble for cash. Patrick Soon-Shiong’s media outfit aims to raise up to $500 million ahead of a planned 2027 IPO, pitching itself as a growthy combination of The New York Times, Twitch, and Vice at its peak. Soon-Shiong will take $100 million of the new shares in exchange for forgiving a loan he made to the Times. It’s expensive money — its dividends, if paid in cash instead of the scrip the Times is offering, would have eaten up 15% of last year’s revenue — and a bridge to an IPO that the company isn’t yet ready for: Its skinny and unaudited financials show a $48 million loss in 2024.
Here’s the pitch: A legacy newspaper leaning into IP (the Times turned a local crime story into the juicy Dirty John podcast and Bravo series); a turnkey content studio; and a gaming vertical combining live events with Wordle-style daily habits. The paper, which like other media outlets has turned rightward in the Trump era, might succeed in tapping into California conservatives; it has hired the same small bank that ran a similar fundraising for Newsmax in January. (Now, though, it will also have to contend with an LA-based Rupert Murdoch tabloid.)