McClatchy Co. announced Tuesday it will sell The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News for $562 million to a Philadelphia investment group.
McClatchy will receive $515 million in cash from Philadelphia Media Holdings, headed by Brian Tierney, a prominent advertising and public-relations executive, and Bruce Toll, co-founder of homebuilder Toll Brothers Inc. The investment group will also assume $47 million in pension liabilities.
Denver-based ap Inc., which owns The Denver Post and dozens of other newspapers, offered $575 million in April for the two Philadelphia papers, Media News president Jody Lodovic said Tuesday.
MediaNews made that offer, Lodovic said, while negotiating the purchase of four McClatchy papers in a $1 billion deal that also involved the Hearst Corp.
Lodovic said McClatchy rebuffed the MediaNews offer for the Philadelphia papers and reopened the bidding process.
“They declined our offer, and we did not participate the second time around,” he said.
McClatchy did not again approach MediaNews about the bid because “they didn’t want to slow the thing down,” said Lodovic, referring to the sale of the Philadelphia newspapers.
McClatchy officials could not be reached for comment.
McClatchy, based in Sacramento, Calif., bought Knight Ridder Inc. and its 32 newspapers in March for $4.5 billion plus $2 billion in debt. McClatchy said it would sell 12 of those papers.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Staff writer Will Shanley can be reached at 303-820-1260 or wshanley@denverpost.com.
