Torstar Corporation is a Canadian mass media company which primarily publishes news. In addition to the Toronto Star, its flagship and namesake, Torstar also publishes daily newspapers in Hamilton, Peterborough, Niagara Region, and Waterloo Region In addition to the Metroland Media Group and a minority position on Canadian Press. The corporation was initially established in 1958 to take over operations of the Star from the Atkinson Foundation after a provincial law banned charitable organizations from owning for-profit entities. From 1958 to 2020, the class A shares of Torstar were held by the families of the original Atkinson Foundation trustees. The private investment firm NordStar Capital LP, now owned by Jordan Bitove, acquired the company in 2020.
History
Torstar was founded after the Ontario government passed a law barring the provisions of late-Toronto Star owner Joseph Atkinson's will from being enacted. Atkinson had bequeathed the newspaper to a charitable organization he had founded. The Progressive Conservative provincial government of George Drew passed a law banning charitable organizations from operating profitable entities such as newspapers. Rather than sell the newspaper, the trustees of the Atkinson Foundation bought out the Star privately and founded Torstar as a private corporation.
On November 26, 2010, it was announced that the Canadian Press news agency would be taken over by a for-profit corporation, with Torstar serving as one of its investors. On November 27, 2017, Postmedia and Torstar announced a transaction in which Postmedia would sell seven dailies, eight community papers, and the Toronto and Vancouver 24 Hours to Torstar, in exchange for 22 community papers and the Ottawa and Winnipeg versions of Metro. Except for the Exeter Times-Advocate, St. Catharines Standard, Niagara Falls Review, Peterborough Examiner, and Welland Tribune, all acquired papers were to be closed. Torstar stated that it wanted to focus on building synergies within its existing markets served. The swaps effectively remove competition between the two companies in the affected markets; the Competition Bureau stated that it would review the proposed deal. and in March 2018, formally accused the companies of using no-compete clauses to reduce competition in the newspaper industry, in violation of the Competition Act. On December 20, 2018, Torstar applied to the Ontario Superior Court for an order to keep documents seized from its offices by the Competition Bureau sealed from the public.
Sale to NordStar
Initial NordStar proposal
On May 26, 2020, Toronto Star publisher John Honderich announced the sale of Torstar to Nordstar Capital LP, for $52 million. The price for the class A voting shares and class B non-voting shares was set at 63 cents in the deal. At the time of the most recent quarter, Torstar had $69 million in cash on its balance sheet – more than the $52-million acquisition price from Nordstar. However, Torstar's share price had suffered from the company's inability to generate enough revenue or cost savings to pay quarterly dividends, which were suspended late in 2019. The suspension pushed the publicly traded B shares to what was then the lowest level since at least the late 1990s — 53 cents. Weeks prior to the announcement of the deal, Torstar had reported a $23.5-million loss for the first quarter of 2020.
The new owners planned to make Torstar a private company with former Premier of Ontario David Peterson as chair of the board.
NordStar revised proposal and final sale
On July 11, the NordStar bid was increased to $60 million, or 74 cents per share, with the Voting Trust and Fairfax revising their soft lock-up agreements, to hard lock-ups. This effectively put an end to the bidding process because the terms of the revised bid meant that "the Voting Trust and Fairfax can't change their votes to support any other bid".