Slim invests in Times

I found some more information today pertaining to my Jan. 28 post. Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu has given the New York Times a $250 billion loan. A Times article said that the paper needed the loan "amid flagging advertising sales and approaching deadlines." The Times Company needs to pay back a $400 million credit line by May and must pay back a total of $1.1 billion in debt in the next few years.

Slim appears to be the Times' savior after he loaned the Times Company $250 million on Jan. 19. Still, Slim's six-year loan notes carry a 14 percent interest rate. Maybe I'm just overly critical, but that seems to be a high interest rate since Slim owns 6.9 percent of the company. If he really cared about the company's well-being as a stockholder, wouldn't he want to give the Times a lower rate? Wouldn't a lower rate help the company's finances and in turn help his own finances as a stockholder?

Although I'm not an economist and can't tell you the exact answers to the above questions, I do know that Slim has received stiff criticism from no one other than the "Gray Lady" in distress. On Aug. 27, 2007, Eduardo Porter wrote an editorial about Slim in which he called the Mexican billionaire a "robber baron" who has committed the "sin of the monopolist." Porter also criticized Slim for a lack of charity. Even though Slim was the richest man in the world in 2007 according to Fortune, as cited in the Times article, Slim gives $20 billion less to charity.

And this is the Times' savior? I know that when you are in financial trouble you will grab onto any life preserver thrown to you. But this is the Times, one of the most highly regarded papers in the country. I had hoped that a winner of almost 100 Pulitzers would have had held themselves to higher standards.