N.Y. News Publisher Vows to Sell or Close It : Newspaper: A March 15 deadline for sale is given. Only Robert Maxwell is looking at the strikebound tabloid.

The New York Daily News will shut down March 15 unless a “binding agreement” is reached to sell the financially troubled, strike-crippled tabloid by that date, Publisher James Hoge said Monday.

Sources at the Daily News said the paper was close to reaching an agreement in principle with British publishing magnate Robert Maxwell. But Maxwell would still have to win concessions from the paper’s nine striking unions in the next 10 days to save it.

“Barring a sale, I regret that a shutdown of the business will be necessary,” Hoge said in a statement. He added that the paper, which was already operating in the red before the strike began last October, is losing $700,000 a day.

Sources familiar with the negotiations said the current owner, Chicago-based Tribune Co., wants to sell the Daily News to Maxwell but was waiting Monday to establish that he has the financial wherewithal to qualify as a buyer.

If Maxwell were to acquire the News, he would have to assume pension, severance and contract guarantees estimated anywhere from $50 million to $150 million. In addition, the British publisher would be inheriting an antiquated printing plant that Tribune Co. has projected would cost between $350 million and $500 million to replace.

Hoge, in his statement Monday, made no mention of negotiations with Maxwell, which began last week. But sources familiar with the talks said Maxwell would not have to pay Tribune Co. any cash. Instead, he would have to assume all long-term liabilities, leaving the current owner free and clear.

Union leaders said they are willing to discuss concessions with Maxwell but were waiting to hear first from Tribune Co. that he is qualified as a buyer.

The unions are on record as saying that they would be willing to grant the News the same contract concessions that they gave the New York Post last year to rescue that tabloid from closing, including a four-day workweek.

Jack Kennedy, president of the pressmen’s union, one of the nine unions striking the News, said he is optimistic that a deal could be reached with Maxwell despite the March 15 deadline. “I believe this can be done,” Kennedy said. “It was done at the New York Post in a shorter period of time.”

Editor James P. Willse told staff in the newsroom that “the closing of the News is in no way predestined.” Willse made the announcement after meeting with Hoge.

Many analysts believe that Maxwell would want more concessions than the unions gave the Post. For one thing, Post Publisher Peter Kalikow, a New York real estate magnate whose company is privately owned, is happy enough if the paper breaks even financially, Post executives have acknowledged in interviews.

Maxwell’s empire, concentrated in Britain, includes the Daily Mirror and the Daily Record in London and the Sunday Mail in Scotland.

His American holdings are more recent. After acquiring the Macmillan book publishing house in 1989, he bought three American supermarket tabloids, the National Examiner, the Sun and the Globe.

Maxwell is the only suitor still looking at the News, according to Lazard Freres & Co., the investment banking firm handling the sale. Real estate and magazine tycoon Mortimer B. Zuckerman withdrew last week.

Tribune Co. decided to try to sell the News last week after the failure of efforts by former Secretary of Labor William Usery Jr. to break the stalemate between the News and the striking unions.

News management was seeking a “management rights” clause that would give it virtually unilateral control over work rules and staffing levels. Union leaders resisted granting this concession, contending that it would effectively strip the unions of any meaningful role.

Negotiations between the two sides have shown little or no progress since the contract expired last March 30.