By: E&P Staff National Post President Paul Godfrey and Vancouver-based community publisher Glacier Media are leading competing consortiums to buy the newspapers of bankrupt Canwest Global Communications, the Globe and Mail reported Wednesday.
The sale, described by the Globe and Mail as "the largest auction of media assets ever undertaken in Canada." Among the properties in its Canwest Limited Partners newspaper division are the Montreal Gazette, Ottawa Citizen and National Post.
Citing unnamed "sources close to the situation," Globe and Mail reporters Grant Robertson and Susan Krashinsky said the consortium led by Godfrey, the former CEO of the Sun Media chain, including CanPages Inc., a phone directory publisher based in Vancouver. The consortium is backed by the U.S. private equity firm Hicks Muse Tate & Furst, the paper reported.
It also includes "at least six top Canwest executives" who would operate the chain, according to the report.
A rival consortium reportedly is led by Glacier Media, which is said to want Canwest's 35 community papers.
Reeling under $4 billion in debt, Canwest is under court protection while it restructures. Bank of Nova Scotia, which is organizing the auction, has said only bids for the entire newspaper division will be accepted, the Globe and Mail reported.
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