What's the Big Deal? It's 'Bid Day' for McClatchy

By: E&P Staff Bids are due by 5 p.m. Tuesday for newspaper companies and investors interested in buying one, some or all of the 12 Knight Ridder papers back on the market after the tentative sale to McClatchy. Yet it appears that some interested parties are not yet allowed to bid and that this may only be "phase one" in the process.

Pete Carey in the Knight Ridder flagship San Jose Mercury News reports today that a "small furor" broke out late Monday over who will be allowed to make offers.

Knight Ridder spokesman Polk Laffoon said it was his understanding that McClatchy was limiting bids, for now, to those who had tried to win the big deal for Knight Ridder and signed confidentiality agreements then. That would mean merely leave Gannett, MediaNews and private equity firms.

It would eliminate, for now, an offer from Yucaipa, the California equity firm that has joined with the Newspaper Guild to bid for all 12 papers. But Guild President Linda Foley told Carey Monday night that Yucaipa was submitting a bid today anyway.

The guild and others have complained that McClatchy has not made full financial information available to them and others, making bidding more difficult. But in a "second round" of bids could change.

The San Francisco Chronicle on Tuesday, meanwhile, called MediaNews and its CEO Dean Singleton the likely winners of three California papers, the Mercury News, Contra Costa Times and Onterey County Herald. It posed this question regarding Singleton: "Ruthless skinflint or civic-minded journalist?" It added: "The prospect of Singleton as an owner inspires some trepidation. Journalists at papers bought by Singleton tell horror stories of newsroom staffs being eviscerated and costs slashed to the bone."

But the paper also noted that "other observers, as well as editors of Singleton papers, say that portrait distorts his record of balancing journalistic concerns with bottom-line business values."

However, the Chicago Tribune reports that MediaNews still hadn't decided as of late Monday whether it would bid for 12 Knight Ridder newspapers by Tuesday's deadline.

"It's a very fluid situation. We're trying to get updated numbers," Joseph Lodovic, president of Denver-based MediaNews, told the Tribune Monday evening. "Until 5 o'clock [Tuesday] when we press the button, we're still not decided where we're headed."

The Los Angeles Times observes that a local group led by Syrian immigrant Nader Agha, 62, wants the Monterey paper.

"I am not interested in the newspaper because I am a developer," Agha told the Times. "I am interested because I can make a difference. I can return it to the people."

His group estimates that paper is worth between $30 million and $45 million.

A second Times story expresses some amazement that of all the billionaires in Silicon Valley, no one seems interested in buying the Mercury News.