NYSE to delist GateHouse Media

Posted by Leah McBride Mensching on October 23, 2008 at 11:40 PM

One of the largest community newspaper publishers in the United States will be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange before the market opens Friday morning, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

GateHouse Media Inc.'s stock price, which has not gone above US$1 per share since July, is “abnormally low,” making it appropriate for the NYSE Regulation Inc., the regulatory branch of the NYSE, to suspend trading. Earlier this month, GateHouse presented a plan that it had hoped would keep it from being delisted.

The NYSE's rules for listing state that stocks trading for less than $1.05 during a 30-day average, or drop below “minimum market capitalisation of $75 million” may be delisted, the AP reported.

The NYSE Regulation Inc. decided not to give the GateHouse plan a chance, as the company's stock price was down to 17.2 cents Wednesday morning, from $20 per share in October 2006. GateHouse's plan called for suspending dividend payments and paying off its “revolving credit facility,” according to the AP report, posted by Forbes.

Earlier this year, the Sun-Times Media Group and Journal Register Co. were delisted, making GateHouse the third newspaper stock to be taken off the Big Board.