It took several full-page ads, an 11th-hour bid and ostensibly a premium price, but Tribune Publishing has swooped in and struck a deal to buy the employee-owned Daily Herald suburban newspaper.
The board of Paddock Publications, which operates the Daily Herald, sent an email to employees Thursday afternoon announcing that an asset purchase agreement has been signed, with a scheduled June 22 closing date.
Terms of the sale were not disclosed, but the board said it would send out an information packet to Daily Herald employees in the next few days detailing the offer. The employee stockholders of the 150-year-old, formerly family-owned newspaper will then vote on whether to approve the offer, according to the Paddock email, which was obtained by the Tribune.
“This has been a long and arduous road, beginning more than a year ago with an unsolicited offer from Shaw Media to purchase the Daily Herald,” the Paddock board said in the email. “While a special committee of Paddock’s Board of Directors and the board itself were reviewing the offer, the Chicago Tribune announced that it would also make a bid.”
Doug Ray, chairman, publisher and CEO of Paddock Publications, did not respond to a request for comment Thursday, while Par Ridder, general manager of Chicago Tribune Media Group, declined to comment.
Crystal Lake-based Shaw Media, a 175-year-old, family-owned company that owns dozens of smaller newspapers across northern Illinois, also did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
The publisher of the Daily Herald filed notice with the state in January that it was considering a sale of the northwest suburban newspaper. The following month, the Chicago Tribune took out a full-page ad in its own paper offering the employee owners of the Daily Herald a 30% premium over “anyone else” to acquire their newspaper.
Founded in 1872 as the Cook County Herald, the suburban Chicago newspaper has grown into the third-largest daily print publication in Illinois, with a current circulation of 52,410, according to its website. Owned by the Paddock family for more than a century, the newspaper was converted to an employee stock ownership plan in 2018.
Tribune Publishing made a concerted and ultimately convincing pitch to Paddock Publishing about adding the Daily Herald to its Chicago portfolio, which includes the Tribune and nearly three dozen daily and weekly suburban newspapers. But it was a premium price that apparently put the Tribune bid over the top.
“The due diligence on behalf of ESOP participants has been thorough and thoughtful,” the Paddock board said in its email. “Analysts helping to determine whether to sell or hold reviewed every aspect of the company’s operations. Current newspaper sales showed that the price being offered by the Tribune was at the upper end of comparable newspaper sales transactions.”
In 2023, Tribune Publishing bought the Daily Herald printing plant for an undisclosed price, shifting its own operations there the following year when the Chicago newspaper vacated the Freedom Center to make way for the permanent Bally’s Chicago casino, which recently topped off construction and is scheduled for a delayed opening early next year.
Paddock Publications fired up the presses at the $50 million printing plant on 21 acres by the Elgin-O’Hare Expressway in 2003 to churn out its flagship Daily Herald. As part of the Schaumburg plant acquisition, Tribune began printing the Daily Herald under contract.
Next month, pending approval by employee shareholders, the Daily Herald and Chicago Tribune will be under the same corporate umbrella as well.
rchannick@chicagotribune.com
