N.Y. Post Escapes Closing; Controversial Financier Agrees to Buy It : Media: Investor has been repeatedly investigated by state and federal regulators. Deal must be approved by the paper’s principal creditor.

The New York Post narrowly escaped shutdown Sunday night when a controversial financier, who repeatedly has been investigated by federal and state regulators, agreed to buy the struggling tabloid.

Steven Hoffenberg, 48, chairman of Towers Financial Corp., a Manhattan-based finance and collection company, plans to buy the paper from bankrupt owner Peter Kalikow. The deal still must be approved by Bankers Trust, the Post’s principal creditor, which cut off its credit last week.

Kalikow’s announcement came after most of the paper’s unions agreed to a 20% pay cut to give him time to arrange the sale.

Hoffenberg’s firm sells high-yield notes to investors nationwide. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil suit against Towers in 1988 over the sale of $34 million in unregistered securities to investors in 26 states. A federal judge ordered the sale halted.

Illinois authorities filed a federal racketeering suit against Towers in 1991, charging improper conduct in the takeover of two insurance companies, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal.

The Journal recently reported that California authorities are investigating Towers for possible securities violations and that the firm had hired Mickey Kantor, now President Clinton’s trade representative, to represent it.

Three states--Alabama, Louisiana and Nebraska--have found that Towers sold promissory notes in violation of state securities laws, according to the newspaper. Towers has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Hoffenberg also worked with former President Richard M. Nixon’s brother, Edward, in an unsuccessful 1987 attempt to take over Pan American World Airways.

New York Post staffers were relieved at dodging another bullet but wary about their prospective owner. “It sounds like we’re getting into bed with someone worse than Kalikow,” said reporter Karen Phillips. Librarian Myron Rushetzky added: “This is not a newspaperman; he’s a money man.”

Union members were not happy about accepting their second pay cut in 2 1/2 years. “We were literally caught in the wringer. Hogtied like pigs going to the slaughter,” said reporter Bill Hoffmann.

But John Langton, a 28-year veteran in the art department, said: “Thank God. . . . Another time we’ve been snatched from the jaws.”

Kalikow, who by one account is losing $250,000 a week on the Post, said the paper will raise its price from 40 to 50 cents.

Kalikow said that no price had been set for the 192-year-old newspaper but that he hoped to hammer out the details in the next four weeks.

New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo told the Associated Press that Hoffenberg is willing to put up $300,000 to $500,000 a week to cover the Post’s expenses while a long-term deal is worked out.

The crisis burst into public view Friday when Kalikow announced that he would suspend publication unless the unions agreed to an emergency pay cut by Sunday. Kalikow, who filed for bankruptcy protection in 1991, owes Bankers Trust about $30 million.

Analysts consider the Post the weakest of the city’s four newspapers, and it came within hours of closing in 1988 and 1990.

Reporter-columnist Andrea Peyser, who recently returned from an assignment in Somalia, told Associated Press that people at the newspaper’s downtown offices Sunday were “angry and frustrated but feeling totally impotent.”

“I would say Somalia was upbeat compared to this,” she said.