By: Mark Fitzgerald MediaNews Group late Wednesday denied a report in an investors newsletter that it is arranging a pre-packaged bankruptcy -- or readying any change in ownership of the Denver-based publisher controlled by William Dean Singleton and Richard B. Scudder.
Calling the report, which originated from Debtwire last week, "inaccurate in almost all respects," MediaNews said in a statement that it has been in discussions with its bank lenders to "restructure its balance sheet, including an exchange of some of its bank debt for equity" in the parent company of The Denver Post and dozens of more dailies.
"Proposals to the company's lenders do not include a change in control of the company, nor do they include proposals for any bankruptcy filings, as the rumors suggest," the statement said.
The report from Debtwire, a subscription service owned by the corporation that publishes the Financial Times, made almost no industry impact when it was released last week. But on Wednesday, the Denver alt-weekly Westword posted an article by media writer Michael Roberts that quoted extensively from its reporting.
Quoting unidentified sources, Debtwire reported that MediaNews had scheduled a conference call with its lenders for Wednesday to discuss restructuring. "The company is expected to implement its restructuring through a pre-arranged or pre-packaged bankruptcy filing, said the first source, a lender and a sellside analyst," Debtwire reported, according to the Westword account.
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