New York Times may find benefactor in Slim

By Robert MacMillan and Noel Randewich - Analysis

NEW YORK/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The New York Times Co has heard more than its share of opinions on what it must do to survive. Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim appears ready to let his cash do the talking.

The 68-year-old telecoms tycoon, ranked by Forbes magazine as the world's second-richest man with $60 billion, may pump hundreds of millions of those dollars into the Times Co, with the newspaper company's board expected to meet this week on the matter, a source familiar with the talks said on Saturday.

Slim has fought accusations in Mexico of anti-competitive and monopolistic business practices. More recently, he is known for giving away millions to charity.

His intentions for the Times could be similarly philanthropic.

Some media watchers say Slim is unlikely to try to force the Ochs-Sulzberger family, which has run the New York Times for more than a century, to sell it or make drastic changes. Slim himself said, when he disclosed a 6.4 percent in the Times Co last September, that his interest was purely financial.

"That does make him something of an ideal investor," said Alex Jones, a Harvard University professor and author of "The Trust," which is widely considered the definitive biography of the Sulzbergers and The New York Times.

"This is a man who already has made his fortune and is in his own way an entrepreneur like Adolph Ochs was," Jones said. "That's different from some financiers looking for an opportunity to make a killing."

Slim, currently the fourth-largest shareholder in the Times Co, is near a deal to invest another $250 million via 10-year notes with warrants convertible into common shares, the New York Times reported on Sunday.