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| Investor Group Looking To Bid For Sun-Times Ownership |
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| Written by Larz | |||
| Wednesday, 30 November 2011 18:01 | |||
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According to a new report today by Crain's Chicago Business' Lynne Marek, Steve Daniels and John Pietz, the CEO of Chicago-based venture capital firm Merrick Ventures LLC, is attempting to put together a large group of investors to make a bid for ownership of Sun-Times Media Holdings LLC. The bid could be for approximately $14 million, plus assumption of the company's current debt.
The Crain's online article says that Merrick Ventures CEO Michael Ferro has been working on this offer for several weeks. The article did not know of any formal date when the offer will be put in, however. Among the potential investors in this group is Madison Dearborn Partners LLC Chairman John Canning, Jr. Both Ferro and Canning are also recent investors in the Chicago News Cooperative (CNC) -- the local, non-profit news organization which publishes news on its own website and for the New York Times. Canning is now the Chairman of the CNC Board of Directors, while Ferro sits on the Board. In response to the Crain's report this afternoon, Sun-Times Media quickly sent out an email to all of its employees today, calming fears, according to a report on the Sun-Times website. In the company-wide email, STMH Chairman/CEO Jeremy Halbreich, said "The paper and the company have never been put up for sale. We've not been shopped. We are not being marketed." He added "The fact that our competition is speculating about our future is due in no small measure to the success of the turnaround that we are in the middle of." According to the Sun-Times report, STMH has received many inquiries about purchasing the company from investors since Sun-Times Chairman and co-owner James Tyree passed away in March. In 2009, Tyree, then the Chairman/CEO of Mesirow Financial, led a large group of investors to purchase the Chicago Sun-Times and all of its suburban newspapers, taking them out of bankruptcy and saving them from probable extinction. Tyree & his investment group bid $5 million dollars to gain the media company and assumed its $20 million in liabilities. 
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