INVESTMENTS IN UNCONSOLIDATED COMPANIES

6 Months Ended

Jun. 25, 2017

INVESTMENTS IN UNCONSOLIDATED COMPANIES

3. INVESTMENTS IN UNCONSOLIDATED COMPANIES

The carrying value of investments in unconsolidated companies consisted of the following:


(in thousands)	% Ownership	June 25,		December 25,
Company	Interest	2017		2016
CareerBuilder, LLC	15.0	$	77,560	$	236,936
Other	Various		5,902		5,446
		$	83,462	$	242,382

CareerBuilder, LLC

On June 19, 2017, we announced that along with the current ownership group of CareerBuilder, we entered into an agreement to sell a majority of the collective ownership interest in CareerBuilder to an investor group led by investment funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Management Group along with the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board. The transaction closed on July 31, 2017. We received $73.9 million consisting of approximately $7.3 million in normal distributions and $66.6 million of gross proceeds.

As a result of the closing of the transaction, our new ownership interest in CareerBuilder was reduced to approximately 3.6% from 15.0%. We have estimated the fair value of the remaining interest in CareerBuilder and our loss on the transaction. As a result, we recorded $45.6 million and $168.6 million in pre-tax impairment charges on our equity investment in CareerBuilder during the quarter and six months ended June 25, 2017, respectively.

HomeFinder, LLC

On February 23, 2016, we, along with Gannett Co. Inc. and Tribune Publishing Co. (now “tronc, Inc.”) (the “Selling Partners”) sold all of the assets in HomeFinder, LLC (“HomeFinder”) to Placester Inc. (“Placester”) in exchange for a small stock ownership in Placester and a 3-year affiliate agreement with Placester to continue to allow the Selling Partners to sell Placester and HomeFinder’s products and services. As a result of this transaction, during the quarter ended March 27, 2016, we wrote off our HomeFinder investment of $0.9 million, which is recorded in equity income in unconsolidated companies, net, on our condensed consolidated statements of operations.

Other

During the quarter and six months ended June 25, 2017, we wrote-down $0.5 million of certain other unconsolidated investments.