Bidder information
Please
find below the entities that we believe have bid or were interested
in the Copley papers.
All 8 Papers (OH & Illinois):
Gatehouse Communications
Trico
2 Equity Groups (no other info avail.)
Ohio Papers Only
Black Press,Ltd.
Brown Publishing
Local Group (Allen Schulman)
Australian Co. (which recently purchased small paper in Texas)
GateHouse
Media Profile
www.gatehousemedia.com
Stock traded on New York Stock Exchange: GHS
Source: Company web site and MediaOwners.com
GateHouse Media — formerly Liberty Group Publishing
— is headquartered in Fairport, N.Y., and owns more than 430 community
publications in 18 states across the country, with more than 230 related
web sites reaching approximately 9 million people on a weekly basis.
Holdings include 77 daily newspapers, 271 non-daily newspapers and 136
shoppers and other publications, in 17 states. GateHouse specializes
in publications with daily circulation of less than 20,000.
In May 2006, GateHouse bought the Community Newspaper
Co. unit of Herald Media for $225M. CNC publishes more than 100 daily
and weekly newspapers in Massachusetts with a combined circulation of
about 600,000. At that time GateHouse also acquired Enterprise NewsMedia
LLC, the publisher of the Patriot Ledger of Quincy, the Enterprise of
Brockton, and a number of South Shore weeklies.
In a Feb. 2 press release the company announced that
it has engaged Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC and Goldman Sachs Credit
Partners, L.P. to structure, arrange and privately syndicate, and underwrite
a portion of $960 million of new credit facilities expected to be completed
in February 2007. The proceeds of the new credit facilities will be
used to refinance existing debt, finance the previously announced acquisition
of SureWest Directories (which acquisition is subject to governmental
approvals and other customary closing conditions), and finance future
acquisitions.
On Feb. 12 the company completed the previously announced
acquisition of seven publications from the Journal Register Company
for a purchase price of $70 million plus approximately $2 million of
working capital for two daily and three weekly newspapers, and two shopper
publications located in Fall River and Taunton. The daily Fall River
Herald News has a circulation of 20,932 and the Taunton Daily Gazette
has a circulation of 9,437. The acquisition was financed with a combination
of cash on hand and available credit under existing facilities.
Trico
profile
A division on Lee Enterprises Stock traded on New York Stock Exchange:
Source: Company web site and MediaOwners.com
Lee
Enterprises, based in Davenport, Iowa, operates newspapers
across the United States, mostly serving small and midsized markets
in the Midwest and west. The company has 52 daily newspapers and over
300 weekly newspapers and specialty publications.
It bought newspaper publishing company Pulitzer Inc.
from the Pulitzer family in June 2005 for $1.46 billion. Lee gained
control of Pulitzer's 14 daily newspapers, including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
and the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, along with more than 75 weekly
and biweekly community papers. Former company chairman Lloyd Schermer
and his family have nearly 40 percent voting control of Lee Enterprises.
2004 sales are estimated at $683 million.
In a press release issued Feb. 20, the company reported
that same property advertising revenue in January decreased 3.8 percent
compared with a five-Sunday month a year ago. Online advertising, which
is not as significantly affected by calendar cycles, increased 44.7
percent.
Mary Junck, Lee chairman and chief executive officer,
said: “The calendar differences make year-over-year comparisons
difficult, especially in one of our smallest revenue months of the year.
It’s clear, though, that ad sales slipped a bit in January, and
we look forward to resuming the stronger pace we've shown over the last
few months. Meanwhile, we have
begun aggressively rolling out our new Yahoo HotJobs employment platform,
and in the last few weeks 17 of our markets have begun upselling ads
on the new national network. Also in the last few weeks, we have launched
an advanced training program called Lee Online University. By mid-March,
we will have graduated more than 350 editors, sales executives, publishers
and managers to help us make our online sites even more compelling and
continue to drive rapid growth in online advertising revenue.”
Black
Press Inc. profile
Sources: Company web sites and Ketupa.net
Privately held primarily by David Black. Torstar, owner
of the Toronto Star, holds a 20-percent stake. The company purchased
the Akron Beacon Journal in 2006, paying $165 million.
David Black founded the business in 1975. The company
gained attention when it bought 33 Canadian titles from UK group Trinity
in 1997. In 2001 he acquired the Honolulu Star-Bulletin from Liberty
Newspapers. Black merged the Star-Bulletin with a small local weekly,
building circulation until the revived paper now equals Gannett's Honolulu
Advertiser.
The company's only other daily newspaper is The Red
Deer Advocate in Alberta. It also owns some of the oldest, most trusted
newspapers in British Columbia, like the Chilliwack Progress, founded
in 1891, and the Ashcroft Journal, which first published in 1895, and
modern, cosmopolitan voices like the Westender, in Vancouver. It bought
the 10 King County Journal newspapers late last year, and closed the
daily King County Journal, which had been losing money and circulation
for years. The paper shut down Jan. 24.
David Black was the recipient of the 2007 Distinguished
Entrepreneur of the Year Award (DEYA), presented by the University of
Victoria’s faculty of business board of advisors. The award was
announced on Feb. 14. The annual award acknowledges an inspirational
entrepreneur who has had a significant and positive impact on the global
community through his or her business leadership.
Brown
Publishing profile
Based in Cincinnati
Source: Company web site
Founded in 1920 and has grown to be one of the largest independent family-owned
newspaper publishing companies in Ohio. Originally founded with one
weekly newspaper, the Company has expanded to publish 18 daily newspapers,
27 paid weekly newspapers, 15 Total Market Coverage (TMC) newspapers,
and 11 TMC shoppers.
On a weekly basis, Brown products now reach over 1.8
million people and 750,000 households in 31 counties in Ohio. The Company's
newspapers are located in the south, central and west of the state,
primarily in rural and suburban markets.
American
Consolidated Media profile
Based in Dallas
Source
is Yahoo! Finance and South Bend Tribune in Indiana
The company owns and operates about 40 local community
newspapers and related print publications, primarily in small-to-medium
markets in Texas and Oklahoma. Its Dallas-based A.M. Journal Express
folded in 2004. The following year American Consolidated sold four newspapers
to Next West Newspapers of Marble Falls, Texas. Chairman and CEO Jeremy
Halbreich was former general manager of the Dallas Morning News before
he founded American Consolidated in 1998.
Australia-based Macquarie Media Group in January said
it will pay $80 million for American Consolidated Media. Macquarie's
sister company, Macquarie Infrastructure Group, last year joined with
the Spanish conglomerate Cintra to lease the Indiana Toll Road for the
next 75 years.
