Gov. Cuomo Says Investor May Come to Aid of Ailing N.Y. Post : Media: Deal is sought to keep the newspaper from suspending publication. Most unions agree to a 20% wage cut but creditors are said to be unsatisfied.

In an eleventh-hour deal that could save the New York Post from suspending publication, a potential investor emerged Sunday night who could put up money immediately to help the newspaper, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo said.

The governor said in a telephone interview that he had discussed with investor Steven Hoffenberg putting up as much as $300,000 to $500,000 a week, beginning next week, to save the ailing tabloid, the nation’s oldest continuously published daily.

Hoffenberg’s help would still require approval of the newspaper’s bankers, who had cut off the Post’s credit last week.

Cuomo’s statement came as most of the Post’s unions agreed to 20% wage cuts to save the 192-year-old paper, and as publisher Peter Kalikow told his managers he might have to suspend publication today.

Kalikow spent Sunday meeting with his bankers, trying to arrange a deal that would keep the Post publishing if its employees accepted 20% wage cuts and the price were raised 10 cents, to 50 cents a copy.

By Sunday night, seven of the 10 unions had voted to support the pay reduction, with members of the other three still voting.

But Kalikow called in his executives for a private meeting as reports surfaced that Bankers Trust had determined the wage concessions weren’t enough to restore the paper’s credit.

Meanwhile, Cuomo said he learned of Hoffenberg’s willingness to help the Post cover its cash needs for the coming week while a longer-term solution is worked out. The state had been trying for three days to find help for the paper.

The parties were trying to arrange a conference call among Kalikow, Bankers Trust and Hoffenberg to see if the offer would satisfy the bankers, Cuomo said.

Howard Rubenstein, a Post spokesman, identified Hoffenberg, 48, as board chairman of Towers Financial Inc., a nationwide accounts receivable financial institution.

Rubenstein said the New York company does $1 billion to $2 billion in business a year in bill collecting.

The actions came after a day of tension during which Post reporters, editors and drivers begrudgingly accepted the 20% pay cuts.

Reporter-columnist Andrea Peyser, who recently returned from an assignment in Somalia, said 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.

Members of the Newspaper Guild approved the cuts by a voice vote Sunday afternoon after a loud, heated, two-hour meeting.

“Our greatest hope in accepting this proposal is that it will lead to a new owner for this paper--one who understands the newspaper business and will have the Post’s future interest at heart,” the Guild said in a statement.

Leaders of all 10 unions recommended that their members accept the pay cut, the second in 2 1/2 years.

A Kalikow spokesman said the average annual salary for reporters at the newspaper before the cut was $45,000 to $50,000.

Despite a reputation for aggressive journalism and such provocative headlines as “Headless Body in Topless Bar,” the Post has steadily lost circulation and encountered financial problems in recent years. It was founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton.

Its daily circulation, which reached a high of nearly 1 million in the early 1980s, has tumbled to about 490,000. The Post does not publish a Sunday edition.