LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong said Monday he plans to take the 143-year-old newspaper public within the next year, a move he says will “democratize” ownership of the West Coast’s largest news outlet.
Soon-Shiong, a biotech billionaire who bought the Times for $500 million in 2018, revealed the plan during a taped interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. He said the goal is to create a publicly owned model similar to the NFL’s Green Bay Packers, which is held by thousands of individual shareholders.
“We’re literally going to take the L.A. Times public and allow it to be democratized and allow the public to have ownership of this paper,” Soon-Shiong said.
The announcement comes amid a turbulent time for the Times, which has faced deep financial losses and a string of newsroom cutbacks. In January 2024, the paper laid off more than 20% of its editorial staff, cutting more than 115 newsroom jobs. The newspaper is believed to be losing between $30 million and $50 million annually. AdWeek recently reported the paper lost $50 million in 2024. The report also claimed that the January fires that ravaged Southern California "disproportionately affected several wealthy Los Angeles neighborhoods, including the Palisades and Altadena, which were home to a dense concentration of The Times’ print subscribers." Print circulation, which was at 75,00 at the start of the year, is now reportedly below 70,000.
When Soon-Shiong bought the Los Angeles Times in 2018 he told the Washington Post, “One of our priorities is to be the sports paper of the nation.” But since 2020, the sports section has been reduced to the last 4-5 pages of the California section five days per week with a standalone 6-8-page section coming out just twice per week. Of the 14 major pro and college teams in the region, the Times only has a traveling beat writer for the Lakers, Dodgers, Rams, Chargers, USC and UCLA.
Two years ago, the paper's sports section eliminated box scores, standings and game stories due to an early print deadline after selling and closing its printing plant in Los Angeles. Since then they have brought them back but they are two days old with readers getting, for example, Sunday's box scores, standings and game stories on Tuesday.
Several top editors, including Executive Editor Kevin Merida and Managing Editor Sara Yasin, have departed in recent years. The newspaper also faced internal backlash after Soon-Shiong reportedly blocked an editorial board endorsement of then–Vice President Kamala Harris, prompting the resignation of the paper’s editorial page editor.
Soon-Shiong said he was inspired by his upbringing in apartheid-era South Africa, where he came to appreciate the role of newspapers in informing the public.
“This is an opportunity for us to have a place where the people, the voice of the people, could be heard,” he said.
Specifics of the public offering are still being worked out, and Soon-Shiong did not say whether the company would pursue a traditional IPO or a unique community ownership model. He said a partner organization is helping design the offering.
If completed, the Los Angeles Times would join other publicly traded media companies such as The New York Times Co. However, Soon-Shiong emphasized his intention to spread ownership broadly among readers and supporters, rather than concentrating control among institutional investors.