$12-Million Offer : Minorities Bid for Ownership of Wave Paper
Charles Z. Wilson, the publisher and chief executive of the Wave newspaper, said Tuesday that he and an investment group of minority business people have offered to buy the weekly newspaper for $12 million.
Wave, which is distributed free to 250,000 homes in largely minority neighborhoods, would become one of the largest minority-owned newspaper companies in the country, Wilson said.
“What we are trying to do is match the equity ownership to the readership,” said Wilson, a former vice chancellor of UCLA. “I don’t say that they have to match that way, but it is the kind of goal that we should be shooting for in minority communities.”
The 69-year-old weekly is owned by five partners, one of them Latino and one black. Wilson said he is the largest shareholder with a 25% stake. He declined to identify the other partners or the other members of his proposed investment group, except to describe them as “outstanding minority business people.”
Called Leveraged Buyout
Wilson, who bought his share of Wave in 1985, said he had had no response from his current partners. “There is no time limit to this offer. There are financial as well as emotional ties that have to be talked about.”
In a statement, the investment group described its offer as a leveraged buyout, which suggests that the group proposes to raise the capital to buy the paper by using the assets in the business as collateral.
Since acquiring control of the paper in 1985, Wilson has installed full-color offset presses, added a financial section and given the paper a more modern look.
According to the statement, Wave had “revenues close to $8 million” in 1986 and more than 200 advertising accounts. Two years earlier, the paper reported revenue of $7 million.
The paper produces 13 local editions. Its readers include people from different racial and cultural groups. The paper is distributed on Wednesdays throughout Westchester, Culver City, Hawthorne, Inglewood and much of South and Central Los Angeles.
