The New York Times Co. is removing its company stock from its 401(k) plan, the company reported in an 8-K filed Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company's 401(k) plan — New York Times Companies Supplemental Retirement and Investment Plan — had $611.4 million in assets as of Dec. 31, according to its latest 11-K filing. The company stock fund had $8.8 million in assets.
"Participants were notified months ago that we would be liquidating the holdings in the company stock fund at year-end, and reinvesting the participant proceeds in a target-date fund," Danielle Rhoades Ha, vice president of communications, said in an email Tuesday.
"While participants were already limited to directing a small fraction of their 401(k) assets into the stock fund, our pension investment committee advised that a single stock fund is not appropriate for a retirement savings plan," she added.
The company issued a notice to directors and officers describing restrictions on trading the company's Class A common stock due to an upcoming blackout period affecting the 401(k) plan, according to the 8-K statement.
In advance of liquidating shares in the stock fund, the 8-K said the blackout period would run from Dec. 20 to "no later than the week ending Dec. 30."
In a separate filing with the SEC on Monday, the company noted that it had previously registered 5.5 million shares of Class A common stock to be offered to eligible 401(k) participants. However, it is now "removing from registration all plan interests and Class A common stock not sold pursuant to the plan," the company said in a form S-8 filing.
