Mar 18, 2009

Union-Tribune sold to private equity firm

Copley announced today that it has sold the San Diego Union-Tribune to Beverly Hills-based Platinum Equity for "an undisclosed price."

This effectively ends Copley's run as a newspaper company. But what does it mean for the Union-Tribune? For one thing, it means the paper isn't going to close down - at least not yet. Officials at Platinum have swaddled the sale in vapid business lingo, which offers little to chew on. For example:
Louis Samson, the Platinum Equity principal leading the Union-Tribune acquisition, called the newspaper “a good fit for Platinum” and its operations-focused approach.
The Canadian publishing company Black Press has a stake in the deal. From the Union-Tribune:
The firm said in a statement that its team includes David H. Black, whose company Black Press owns dozens of community newspapers, mostly in western Canada, and has expanded its U.S. presence with acquisitions of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin in 2000 and the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal in 2006.
Black Press ran into some controversy in 2007 for criticizing the judgment of reporters and editors at the Victoria News after they ran a story that offended a major advertiser.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

there was strong indications that the los angeles times was very close a couple of months ago and then the crap hit the fan.

i keep getting info that in the lang empire that the san gabriel papers keep doing ok next to their peers. if that is the case, why? and why can't the mental giants replicate that performance elsewhere in lang? it isn't that complicated and san gabriel has been doing it for over two years now in spite on lang intervention.

solid legal revenue, local retail, rentals etc. in other words, what they control does ok, it is when they get "help" or suggestions that they run afoul, like with recruitment, magazines, rate structures etc. wonder why they just don't leave a good plan alone!

Anonymous said...

they don't control legal advertising. left alone SGVN does ok with the web too.

Anonymous said...

what does "ok" mean?