Some Family Members Hope to Stop Freedom Sale

By: Lucia Moses Updated at 5:45 p.m. Eastern Standard Time

As the deadline neared Thursday for suitors to submit initial bids for Freedom Communications Inc., a collection of third- and fourth-generation family shareholders reached out to company employees, saying they're working on a plan to keep the company in family hands.

Three granddaughters of company founder R.C. Hoiles said in a letter sent this week that they're working with an unnamed equity partner to buy out family members who have been pressing for a sale of the company.

"We have worked long and hard in this direction, as we are unequivocally opposed to selling our family business to provide liquidity," stated the letter from Judy Hoiles Threshie, Betty Hoiles Bassett, and Pat Hoiles Wallace. A copy of the letter was obtained by E&P Thursday.

Timothy C. Hoiles, another grandchild of the founder and one of the most vocal proponents of a sale, said he hasn't seen details of the family liquidity plan, but that as a Freedom board member, he'd look at any proposal. "I've said for 20-some months, I don't care who buys me out, as long as it's at a fair price," he said in an interview. "Anything over $200 [per share] and up, I'll certainly look at. ... The bottom line is, I want out."

The Irvine, Calif.-based company, which owns the Orange County Register in Santa Ana and 27 other dailies, 37 weeklies, and eight TV stations, earlier this year decided to explore a possible sale or merger. The decision followed years of family feuding, which climaxed last summer when some owners demanded that they be allowed to cash out of the company.

Several major newspaper chains are said to be interested in Freedom, one of the remaining big newspaper companies that is still family-owned. Freedom expected to wrap up the bidding process by summer's end.