By: Lucia Moses Sales Pending to Media General, Copley Press Inc.
Thomson Corp., as part of its quest to unload all but one of its 55
dailies, has reached definitive agreements to sell a total of six to
Media General Inc. and Copley Press Inc.
Yesterday's announcement follows last week's news of pending sales of
38 Thomson dailies for $1.58 billion in two transactions, to Gannett
Co. Inc. and Community Newspaper Holdings Inc.
In the June 13 announcement, Southeast publisher Media General agreed
to pay $237 million for five papers in Alabama, South Carolina, and
Florida with a combined daily circulation topping 90,000. In Alabama,
Media General acquired The Dothan Eagle, The Enterprise
Ledger, the Opelika-Auburn News, and four weeklies. In South
Carolina, the sale included the Morning News in Florence and three
weeklies. The Jackson County Floridian in Marianna, Florida,
part of Thomson's Alabama cluster, has been included in the $237
million deal.
The acquisition will expand Media General's publishing presence into
two new states and tie into its convergence strategy by overlapping
with markets served by its television stations. The sale will be
immediately cash-flow positive but mildly dilutive to earnings, the
company said.
Separately, San Diego, Calif.-based Copley would pay an undisclosed
amount for The Repository in Canton, Ohio, daily circulation
63,711.
The sales are expected to close in the third quarter of the year.
Thomson announced earlier this year that it planned to sell all of its
U.S. and Canadian dailies except Canada's Globe & Mail to focus
on electronic publishing.
Five U.S. and five Canadian dailies remain to be sold. Thomson expects
to announce sales of the remaining U.S. dailies before the end of June,
followed by news of the Canadian papers.
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