Boyd family selling its New Jersey daily p.

By: George Garneau

AFTER TWO SUITORS looked and left, the Central New Jersey Home News in New Brunswick has agreed to be acquired by the Asbury Park Press, 25 miles to the southwest.
Terms were not released on the deal, which was expected to close in July, but one source estimated the price "in the mid-teens" ? or $16 million to $18 million.
"We think it's the smart move for us. It's the appropriate business thing to do," said William Boyd, chairman of Home News Publishing Co.
He said the Home News is profitable, but Press ownership will allow it to compete more aggressively in a crowded market.
An industry source who spoke on the condition of anonymity said a debt crisis, prompted by the region's economic slowdown several years ago, forced Home News Publishing to sell assets in order to pay more than $20 million in debt accumulated through broadcast acquisitions and stock repurchases during the boom years of the late 1980s.
The paper has been for sale since 1990.
If completed, the deal will put Home News Publishing, which began when Hugh Boyd acquired the Home News in 1880, out of the newspaper business. It sold its Connecticut weeklies last year. The company, owned by Boyd and three sons, retains some radio and television holdings.
"It's a very sad ending to a 113-year family newspaper history," said the source.
Boyd said the company plans to expand and may invest in another newspaper.
The Press has agreed to buy certain assets of the Home News, including the name, subscriber lists, trucks and office equipment, but not the real estate or presses.
Despite their proximity, the Press, owned by the Lass family and Jules Plangere Jr., intends to operate the Home News as an independent daily.
Circulating 53,000 papers daily, 61,000 Sunday, from the county seat of Middlesex County, the Home News is surrounded by competing dailies. At least one of them, the News Tribune in Woodbridge, is losing money for its owner, Malcolm Borg, proprietor of The Record in Hackensack to the north.
The closely-held Press, selling 166,000 papers daily, 230,000 Sunday, is the state's second largest paper, but is dwarfed by Newhouse Newspapers' Newark-based Star-Ledger, which sells 470,000 papers daily, 700,000 Sunday. The Star-Ledger shares the central Jersey market with the Home News and the News Tribune.
Press spokesman Tim Zeiss said the Press recently bought a 115,000-square-foot industrial building in Freehold Township and was considering installing there for the Home News a new Goss Colorliner that it has in mothballs.
The soap opera-like courtship for the Home News involved complex attempts to expand newspaper feifdoms in the Garden State.
First Borg tried to buy it, in order to merge it with his money-losing News Tribune, but bankers refused to go along because the Record itself was overextended on loans and suffered reduced profits during the recession.
Then came Journal Register Co., publisher of the racy Trentonian in the state capital of Trenton, but talks broke off because of "substantial business and contractual issues."
Legal complications between Boyd, his three sons, wife, and creditors were said to be daunting.
Zeiss said the press was conducting market studies to determine plans for the Home News.
"We are looking to make it more competitive. We see it as a real growth opportunity," he said.
He said the acquisition makes sense for the Press, whose primary market is the shore counties of ] and Ocean, by giving the company a presence in Middlesex, Somerset and Hunterdon counties.
Despite reports that the floundering state economy prompted the Press to quietly seek a buyer last year, Zeiss strongly denied it was for sale.
He said 1992 ad revenues exceeded expectations, and the paper was expecting to be stronger this year.
He declined to speculate about plans for Home News employees, who are represented by four union bargaining units. The Press is not unionized.
Kelly-Jane Cotter, a reporter and chairwoman of the Home News unit of the Newspaper Guild, said employees were optimistic that the Press offered the best of the three proposals.
The Guild, representing 60 employees, has been without a contract since June 1991.
The Guild and unions representing press operators, mailers and printers would remain the legal bargaining agents if the Press hires a majority of union workers.
As for a regional news-sharing agreement begun last year between the Record and the Press?which could be competing through surrogates at the Home News and News Tribune?the Press wants to retain but the Record has expressed doubts.