Liberal billionaire George Soros purchased $3 million worth of stock holdings in the publisher of the New York Times, filings show.
Soros's stock buy included 126,400 shares in the New York Times Company through Soros Fund Management LLC, the billionaire's New York City-based investment firm. The shares were valued at $3,046,000 at the time of purchase and are shown in a May 15 filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Soros's investment in the Times was for Class A stock holdings, which are publicly traded, as opposed to its Class B stock, which are privately held.
The acknowledgment of the purchase in the mid-May filings from Soros Fund Management appears to be the first time that Soros has invested in the New York Times Company in more than ten years. Soros's fund last reported shares in the company on its 2007 year-end report to the SEC, according to a review of the fund's quarterly reports.
Soros Fund Management is the vehicle used by the financier to purchase and sell various company holdings. The Times recently reported that Soros is a partial owner of Justify, the racehorse who won the Triple Crown, through his fund.
The senior vice president of communications for the New York Times did not respond to an email inquiry on Soros's stock investments in the company by press time. Michael Vachon, Soros's personal spokesperson and a spokesperson for Soros Fund Management, also did not respond to a request for comment on the purchase.
Dan Gainor, vice president of business and culture at the Media Research Center, said that while the investment is small in relation to the company's overall value, it would be "naive" to "disconnect" the investment from one of the most powerful liberals.
"Soros has long had influence or given direct funding to a wide range of journalism operations from NPR to ProPublica," Gainor said. "This is still a big step to be buying a $3-million stake in the top liberal outlet in America."
Gainor found in 2011 that Soros pushed a minimum of $48 million into media ventures that include "journalism schools, investigative journalism and even industry organizations" over the course of just eight years.
This Washington Free Beacon reporter was previously employed by the Media Research Center.
Soros disburses funding to a number of groups that then, in turn, push funding to other organizations, making it nearly impossible to trace the true figure, Gainor noted.