McClatchy Co., the third largest newspaper publisher in the United States, on Tuesday announced it will suspend its quarterly dividend to save up cash to repay debts. This came after it paid its dividend for the first quarter, The Associated Press reported.

The publisher said it declared a 9 cent quarterly cash dividend payable on April 1 to shareholders as of March 11.

However, in a later company news release, the dividend could be suspended "for the foreseeable future so it could conserve its cash," according to the AP article posted on Yahoo Finance.

McClatchy, the publisher of The Miami Herald and The Sacramento Bee, noted that its first-quarter dividend is worth half the per-share dividend paid in the same period one year previous.

Its shares went up 2 cents, or 2.4 percent, and closed at 85 cents Tuesday, the AP reported.