A group of investors is looking to buy the Chicago Sun-Times and its seven suburban newspapers.
Michael Ferro Jr., CEO of Merrick Ventures, is heading the group along with Madison Dearborn Partners Chairman John Canning Jr., sources told the Tribune. The group has yet to make a formal bid, but it is reportedly prepared to offer $14 million and the assumption of any debt to acquire Sun-Times Media, according to Crain’s Chicago Business, which first reported the news Wednesday.
Ferro and Canning are investors in another local news media operation, the nonprofit Chicago News Cooperative, and both sit on its board. No one associated with the prospective Sun-Times buyers would comment for this story.
The timing of a potential bid was not clear, but one source indicated that talks had progressed to the stage of conducting due diligence.
Sun-Times Media Chairman Jeremy Halbreich said the newspaper group has received several recent inquiries from interested buyers but would not confirm any specific discussions. He said, however, that the newspaper is not shopping itself.
“We are not for sale, we have never been put up for sale,” Halbreich said.
Halbreich said inquiries began to filter in after the death in March of Jim Tyree, chairman of Mesirow Financial Group, who rescued the Sun-Times from bankruptcy two years ago. In October 2009, Tyree led a local investor group that bought the newspaper chain for about $25 million.
The Sun-Times ownership group, which includes Blackhawks owner Rocky Wirtz, Mesirow CEO Richard Price and former casino owner Kevin Flynn, reaffirmed its intent to retain the newspaper chain in the wake of Tyree’s death, according to Halbreich.
“Our long-term plans have not changed,” Halbreich said. “No one wanted to exit, no one wanted to bail.”
While declining to give financial guidance, Halbreich said the Sun-Times remains debt-free since emerging from bankruptcy two years ago, and he cites significant cost efficiencies gained since moving its printing to the Tribune’s Freedom Center this fall.
Ferro founded Chicago-based software firm Click Commerce in 1996, which he sold to Illinois Tool Works 10 years later for $292 million. He now runs Merrick Ventures, a technology holding company based in Chicago. Canning, who heads the investment firm Madison Dearborn Partners, is on the board at Merrick.
Canning is chairman and Ferro is on the board of the Chicago News Cooperative, a 2-year-old news venture.
Twitter @RobertChannick
