Credit Squeeze Threatens to Close N.Y. Post : Media: Newspaper asks unions to take pay cut as bank may move to halt financing. Publication could cease Monday.

The New York Post said Friday that the newspaper’s lead bank had threatened to revoke a vital line of credit, raising the possibility that the nation’s oldest continuously published daily newspaper might fold as early as Monday.

The paper’s owner, real estate developer Peter S. Kalikow, asked all of the Post’s unions to accept an immediate 20% pay cut. He also announced that the Post will raise its newsstand price by a dime, to 50 cents, as part of a last-ditch effort to persuade Bankers Trust Co. to continue financing day-to-day operations while the paper seeks a buyer.

“Bankers Trust has basically called the loan,” said Lou Colasuonno, the tabloid’s editor. “There is a very real possibility that the Post will not publish on Monday.”

With both Kalikow and his New York City real estate business in bankruptcy proceedings, the owner has been unable to advance funds to the money-losing newspaper. A rescue deal--former Drexel Burnham Lambert investment banker Leon Black was to have invested up to $12 million and assumed liabilities for the Post’s pension fund--collapsed more than a week ago.

The Post, one of four daily newspapers in New York, was put under increased pressure by the apparent rescue of one of its leading tabloid competitors, the Daily News, which was purchased by publisher and real estate investor Mortimer B. Zuckerman earlier this month.

Founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton, the Post has a circulation of about 500,000 and 720 employees.

The paper’s unions were said to be suspicious that the closure threat was a bluff designed to win pay cuts and make the paper more salable. They were to meet over the weekend and are expected to go along with the 20% cut for 30 days while they evaluate the Post’s financial condition.

Colasuonno denied that the threatened closure is a ploy.

“To say it’s a bluff is really ludicrous at this time,” he said, adding that even if the unions accept the pay cut there is no guarantee Bankers Trust will continue to provide credit. Bankers Trust spokesman Thomas A. Parisi declined to comment.

Kalikow and the Post reportedly owe the bank about $85 million.

Colasuonno said several “serious investors” have expressed interest in recent days and have visited the Post, but he declined to identify any of them.

There have been rumors that Canadian publisher Conrad Black has been interested in the paper, but his investment banker in New York said Friday that no discussions are underway.

There also has been speculation about an acquisition of the Post or a joint operating agreement between the paper and one of the other tabloids--the Daily News and Newsday, the later owned by Times Mirror Co., the parent of the Los Angeles Times.

A Times Mirror spokeswoman said: “Our policy with respect to any acquisition is not to comment.” A spokesman for Zuckerman couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.