Chicago’s No. 2 Daily Sold to Canadian Firm : Newspapers: Hollinger will get the Sun-Times and 60 suburban papers. Labor spokesman voices concern.

The Chicago Sun-Times, the nation’s 11th-largest daily newspaper, will be sold to Canadian publisher Hollinger Inc. for about $180 million in cash, the companies said Monday.

The deal provides the Sun-Times with solid financial backing and nearly doubles the circulation of Hollinger’s U.S. daily newspapers, according to company officials and an industry analyst.

“We have now ensured the long-term viability of the Chicago Sun-Times, as well as our suburban newspaper companies,” Sam S. McKeel, president and chief executive of Chicago Sun-Times Co., told a news conference.

The purchase includes 60 weekly and biweekly suburban papers published by Sun-Times Co.’s Pioneer Press and Star Newspapers units.

The Sun-Times, a tabloid, had a weekday circulation of 535,793 and Sunday circulation of 524,475 in the six months ended Sept. 30. The rival Chicago Tribune’s circulation then was 690,842 daily and 1,101,863 on Sunday, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Hollinger’s U.S. division, American Publishing Co., publishes 97 daily newspapers with a combined paid circulation of about 540,000.

Under an agreement that is to close by March 31, a new subsidiary of American Publishing will acquire all outstanding stock of Sun-Times Co. from the New York investment firm Adler & Shaykin, other institutional investors and members of the Sun-Times management. The group bought the paper for $145 million in 1986.

Hollinger, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, will be the Sun-Times’ fourth owner. The Adler & Shaykin group bought the newspaper from Australian media entrepreneur Rupert Murdoch. He acquired it in 1984 from the Marshall Field family, which founded it in 1948.

McKeel said the current Sun-Times management will remain in place after the sale. He said there is no plan for a significant staff reduction.

The paper’s most prominent writers include film critic Roger Ebert and columnist Irv Kupcinet.

The paper’s unionized editorial staff, whose three-year contract expires in October, reacted cautiously to the announcement.

“It’s too early to know very much, but Hollinger is controlled by Conrad Black, and Conrad Black does not have a good reputation among many labor union officials,” said Charles Nicodemus, chairman of the Sun-Times unit of the Chicago Newspaper Guild.

Black is chairman and chief executive of Hollinger, whose largest newspaper is the conservative London Daily Telegraph. Hollinger also owns other papers in Britain, as well as in Canada, the United States, Australia and Israel.

American Publishing, based in West Frankfort, Ill., publishes more than 280 newspapers and related publications, including 97 dailies. American Publishing’s non-daily papers and free-circulation publications have a combined circulation of about 1.8 million.

American Publishing has grown rapidly by buying struggling small-town newspapers in the central United States and making them profitable, said Marianne Godwin, an industry analyst with the Canadian investment firm BBN James Capel.

“They’ve been nonstop making more money each year since the recession,” she said. The unit’s profit before interest and taxes rose 29% to $24.6 million in 1993, from $19.1 million in 1992, she said.

Hollinger’s 1993 consolidated earnings were up 12% to $134.1 million, from $119.3 million in 1992, she said.

Changing Hands

A brief history of ownership of the Chicago Sun-Times, whose sale to a Canadian media company subsidiary was announced Monday:

* 1948: The Chicago Sun-Times is created by Marshall Field III, who bought the Chicago Daily Times and merged it with the Chicago Sun.

* 1984: Media baron Rupert Murdoch ends three generations of Field ownership, buying the Sun-Times for $90 million. Four top Sun-Times executives resign, and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Mike Royko moves to the rival Chicago Tribune. Murdoch brings in Robert E. Page as publisher and president. Page had overseen the revitalization of another Murdoch paper, the Boston Herald. Sun-Times daily circulation is 639,000 at time of Murdoch purchase.

* 1986: Page and a group of investors buy the Sun-Times and its assets for $145 million, after Murdoch’s company is directed to divest itself of the newspaper. Murdoch’s News America Publishing had acquired six Metromedia Inc. television stations, including WFLD in Chicago, and federal rules bar ownership of a television station and a newspaper in the same market. Sun-Times daily circulation is 631,808 at time of the Page group’s purchase.

* 1987: Page resigns and the investors group, headed by the firm Adler & Shaykin, announces it is purchasing his shares in the newspaper.

* 1994: A unit of Hollinger Inc., a Canadian media company, announces it will acquire the Sun-Times, the nation’s 11th-largest daily newspaper, for about $180 million. The Sun-Times’ daily circulation was 535,793 as of Sept. 30, 1993, the latest figures available from the Audit Bureau of Circulation.

Source: Associated Press