Philadelphia Freedom? Group Readies Bid for Two KR Dailies

By: The co-founder of the nation's largest luxury homebuilder is the lead investor in a homegrown group that wants to buy The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News.

Bruce Toll, vice chairman of Horsham-based Toll Bros., said Friday that "it's a wonderful institution, and it's been around forever, and I would love to be part of it."

Brian Tierney, a Philadelphia advertising and marketing specialist, said he and Toll have enlisted prominent city business owners to join in a bid. Toll also owns car dealerships and other businesses.

The deadline is Tuesday to express preliminary interest in the Philadelphia papers and others in San Jose, Calif.; St. Paul, Minn.; and four other states. The papers are for sale by Sacramento, Calif.-based McClatchy Co., which is acquiring the 32-paper Knight Ridder Inc. chain for $4.5 billion and reselling the 12 papers it doesn't want.

Tierney said he had called the offices of Dean Singleton of MediaNews Group Inc. in Denver, Ronald Burkle of Los Angeles-based Yucaipa Cos., and other likely bidders for the papers, hoping to form a partnership.

"I'd love to be in with any of them," but no partnership deal has been struck, Tierney said.

He said that McClatchy, owner of the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, had not given his group detailed financial information, but that he hoped to get access and prepare a final bid after the group's preliminary offer was accepted.

Yucaipa, which has partnered with the Newspaper Guild -- a union that represents advertising, newsroom, circulation, security and other workers at eight of the papers, including the two in Philadelphia -- said Friday that McClatchy had not given it enough financial information to make a final bid.

But Yucaipa still plans to make a preliminary offer by Tuesday's deadline, said Richard May, managing director of Duff & Phelps Investment Management Co., a Chicago investment bank that is advising the Guild.

(This story comes from The Philadelphia Inquirer)