Times Mirror Boosts Capital Spending Plans

Times Mirror Co. plans to increase its capital spending budget this year to a record level of more than $400 million to keep pace with new technology and stay competitive, Robert F. Erburu, chairman and chief executive, told shareholders at the company’s annual meeting Tuesday.

The money, which will help finance a host of projects--including completion of modern press plants for the Los Angeles Times, a printing facility for the Baltimore Sun newspapers as well as expansion of the company’s cable television systems and other areas--will increase the company’s 1989 year-end debt, Erburu said.

“These capital programs will ensure that Times Mirror companies will keep pace with changing markets and new technologies and will be able to stay ahead of competitive threats,” Erburu said.

In 1988, when Times Mirror earned $332 million on revenue of $3.3 billion, the company spent $302 million on capital projects, mostly for expansion and modernization of press facilities at New York Newsday, the Baltimore Sun newspapers and the Los Angeles Times. Year-end debt was $882 million in 1988, slightly lower than the $887 million of debt in 1987.

Record Revenue

In addition to newspaper publishing, Los Angeles-based Times Mirror has interests in book, magazine and other publishing ventures, as well as in broadcast and cable television.

Those operations generated record revenue in 1988 due to a healthy advertising climate in Southern California, stabilized newsprint costs, the company’s cost savings efforts and increased profit margins in cable television holdings.

The growth continued into the first quarter ended March 31, when Times Mirror revenue rose 9% to $846.9 million. Net income during the quarter was $68.8 million, compared to $75.1 million in the first quarter of 1988.

But Erburu warned that “despite having reported a very satisfactory first quarter, the current economic environment makes us somewhat more guarded in our outlook for the remainder of the year. It is tough going for media businesses at this time as it was last year.”

Also during the annual meeting, shareholders reelected six directors to three-year terms.

The six directors are: Erburu; Otis Chandler, chairman of the executive committee of Times Mirror; F. Daniel Frost, partner at the Los Angeles law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; Clayton W. Frye Jr., senior associate of Laurance S. Rockefeller; David A. Laventhol, president of Times Mirror, and Harold M. Williams, president and chief executive of the J. Paul Getty Trust.