McClatchy Co. Sells 5 Newspapers
McClatchy Co. said Wednesday that it has reached agreements to sell five of the six remaining Knight Ridder newspapers it plans to divest for about $450 million.
The newspapers are the Akron Beacon Journal in Ohio; Duluth News Tribune in Minnesota; Grand Forks Herald in North Dakota; The Fort Wayne News-Sentinel in Indiana and the American News in Aberdeen, S.D.
The Akron paper was the largest of the former Knight Ridder papers remaining for sale. It was bought by Sound Publishing Holdings Inc., a subsidiary of Black Press Ltd., a private company based in Victoria, British Columbia in Canada.
McClatchy said it sold the News-Sentinel to Ogden Newspapers; the Duluth News Tribune and the Grand Forks Herald to Forum Communications Co.; and the Aberdeen American News to Schurz Communications Inc.
Financial terms were not disclosed for any of the deals.
That leaves the Times Leader of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., remaining to be sold. McClatchy has already announced the sale of six other larger newspapers owned by Knight Ridder Inc., including The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Sacramento, Calif.-based McClatchy said in March that it planned to buy Knight Ridder for $4.5 billion plus the assumption of about $2 billion in debt, but said it planned to keep only 20 of Knight Ridder's 32 newspapers, selling the other 12. Most didn't fit McClatchy's criteria of being located in growing markets.
Black Press Ltd. had annual sales of $116.6 million last year. The company has 1,700 employees at several locations, according to Hoover's, an online business research service. The group publishes more than 100 dailies and weeklies, including the Honolulu Star-Bulletin in Hawaii and several Canadian papers.
Chief executive David Black did not immediately return telephone messages Wednesday.
In a memo by Sound Publishing to Beacon Journal employees, Black promised no layoffs and to recognize the paper's current labor unions, including the Newspaper Guild-CWA.
The Beacon Journal has won four Pulitzer Prizes, journalism's highest honors. The newspaper has average weekday circulation of about 128,000 daily, down 7.4 percent over the same period last year. The population of Akron, once the nation's tire-making capital, has been stable in recent years, down about 2 percent since 2000 to about 220,000.
Charles Knight bought the Akron newspaper in 1903 and became publisher four years later.
His son, John S. Knight, became editor and publisher in 1933. He began a series of buys that made the Beacon the flagship of one of the nation's largest newspaper groups, Knight Newspapers. In 1974, the group merged with Ridder Publications to become Knight Ridder Inc.
Dozens of Beacon Journal staffers packed the newspaper's library as publisher James Crutchfield broke the news around 4 p.m. Wednesday.
Crutchfield said Black's "reputation is for figuring out how things work and making them better. He appreciates the value of journalism."
Some Akron staffers laughed and others looked somber during the meeting. One reporter played the anthem "O Canada" on his computer as employees filed in.
Crutchfield would not talk about financial terms.
"They wanted us badly and beat out at least one formable competitor," he said.
Advance Publications in New York, parent company of the Beacon Journal's biggest competitor and Ohio's largest newspaper, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, was believed to be among the possible bidders for the Akron newspaper.
Advance spokesman Bob Woodworth declined comment.