Washington Post sells Newsweek to Dr Sidney Harman

The Washington Post Co. yesterday agreed to sell its 77-year-old magazine Newsweek to Dr Sidney Harman, the 91-year-old founder of a stereo equipment company, ending a three-month bidding process for the loss making publication.

The Post did not reveal the terms of the transaction but said that it will retain the pension assets and liabilities and certain employee obligations and does not expect the sale to have any material profit or loss at closing to the financial position of company.

Harman, an electronics tycoon, who co-invented the first integrated audio receiver along with Bernard Kardon and founded Harman-Kardon in 1952, outbid three other bidders, Fred Drasner-the former co-publisher of the New York Daily News, hedge fund Avenue Capital Group and investment firm OpenGate Capital.

Harman, 91, agreed to keep a majority of Newsweek's more than 300 employees, assume liabilities and will be spending about an estimated $175 million to run the magazine. According to some media reports, Herman has paid a token price of $1 for the magazine.

Harman, who will turn 92 next week and has already made a fortune through his company Harman International Industries, said in an interview yesterday that he was not investing in Newsweek, which is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the US after Time, for a profit.

"Newsweek is a national treasure. I am enormously pleased to be succeeding The Washington Post Company and the Graham family and look forward to this great journalistic, business and technological challenge," he said.