Newspaper Acquisitions
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Newspaper Acquisitions PUBLISHED FOR THE NEWSPAPER INDUSTRY BY DIRKS, VAN ESSEN & MURRAY Volume 19, Issue 4 © Dirks, Van Essen & Murray Year-End 2015 Report What’s Inside Year in review: Deal volume sets new 4th Quarter Complete list of daily newspapers sold in 2015 post-2008 record Largest deals hit page 5 More than half of the year’s dollar Peter Barbey takes the helm at The newspaper deal market set new post- volume occurred in the fourth quarter, the Village Voice recession highs in dollar volume and number page 6 with the largest transactions involving of transactions involving daily newspapers as many of the largest newspapers to Longevity in the West: which the year ended with a flurry of activity. change hands in 2015. papers have been owned the longest? Driven by a large number of small-market The quarter opened with an announce - page 7 transactions and a handful of significant ment that Gannett had agreed to buy group deals, the value of newspaper sales Journal Media Group for $280 million. surpassed $800 million for the first time since And it ended with the sales of three 2008. regional newspapers – the Las Vegas Owen D. Van Essen The largest deals of the year inclued (NV) Review-Journal, the Erie (PA) President Gannett’s agreement to buy Journal Media Times-News and the Fredericksburg Group for $280 million (expected to close in (VA) Free Lance-Star – in separate Philip W. Murray transactions. Executive Vice President 2016), the sale of the Las Vegas (NV) Review-Journal, the earlier sale of Stephens In total, more than $500 million in Sara E. April Media (which included the Review-Journal) Vice President newspaper deals happened in and the acquisition of U-T San Diego by announced or closed transactions during Holly Myers Tribune Publishing. the final three months. The Journal Analyst A number of regional daily newspapers Media Group acquisition is expected to changed hands as well, such as the Freder - close in 2016. icksburg (VA) Free Lance-Star, the Erie (PA) We Hardle Knew Ye Times-News and the Portland (ME) Press Did you know? Just six months after launching as a Herald. There are 207 independently new, newspaper-focused public owned dailies. Nearly all of the buyers were existing company, Journal Media Group agreed newspaper owners, and public companies to be acquired by Gannett. Journal There are 383 dailies owned by made their presence felt in a major way in the Media, with its flagship Milwaukee a publicly traded company. marketplace. Journal Sentinel, was created from the merger of E.W. Scripps and Journal We expect the deal flow to remain strong Communications. There are 403 dailies that publish through 2016. in a market adjacent to markets By the Numbers Gannett will pick up 15 daily where the daily newspaper is newspapers and 18 weeklies in 14 local owned by the same company. In total, 70 daily newspapers were sold last markets in nine states. In addition to the year in 27 transactions worth $826.96 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the million. The dollar volume was just ahead of package includes the Memphis (TN) 2014 ($760.20 million), and the number of Commercial Appeal, the Naples (FL) dailies changing hands also beat out the Daily News, the Treasure Coast group number sold in 2014, which was 67. in southeastern Florida and a number of The dollar volume eclipsed the previous post- dailies in Texas. Total circulation of WWW.DIRKSVANESSEN.COM Continued page 4 Continued next page 4th Quarter Continued from page 1 2014 during a bankruptcy BH Media Strengthens in Virginia proceeding. The sale of the newspaper and its printing facility represented the final divestiture for Acquisition Sandton. Earlier in 2015 it sold radio and tower Existing Property operations it also acquired in the bankruptcy. Erie Sets Sail New Media Investment Group agreed to buy another regional daily with longtime family owners. In mid-December, the Mead family entered into an agreement to sell the 40,000- circulation Erie Times-News to the public company, with the closing set to occur in January. Journal Media Group is approximately 675,000 daily and 950,000 on Sunday. The parent company of the newspaper, Times Publishing Gannett said the $280 million transaction will add $450 Co., has been owned in part or in million in revenue and $60 million in adjusted EBITDA, total by members of the Mead including immediate synergies. Gannett also said it would family since it was founded 127 add another $25 million in operating synergies over the years ago. New Media, the next two years. holding company for GateHouse The transaction is undergoing an antitrust review by the Media, owns 490 publications in Department of Justice. However, both companies expect 31 states. the deal to close in the first quarter of 2016. In making the announcement to BH Bags Fredericksburg the newspaper staff, John Mead Flanagin, chairman of the Times BH Media Group added to its holdings in Virginia with Publishing board, said, “This is the addition of the 31,700-circulation Fredericksburg Free the right time to adapt to the new Lance-Star. environment and have the Erie Times-News and our The Fredericksburg market is digital business move into the future as part of a larger located north of the state media organization.” capital in Richmond, where Erie, located on Lake Erie in the northwest corner of BH Media also owns the Pennsylvania, is the fourth largest city in the state. Times-Dispatch. The acquisi - tion was the second in Virginia Spin the Wheel in Vegas for BH Media in 2015. Earlier Also in December, New Media sold one of its largest in the year it picked up the newspapers, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which it had Martinsville Bulletin in acquired earlier in the year as part of its purchase of southwest Virginia. Stephens Media. The Free Lance-Star transac - New Media completed the $140 million sale to a new tion included a large printing company, News + Media Capital Group LLC, which facility opened in 2010. includes Michael Schroeder, owner of newspapers in The Free Lance-Star had been owned by the Rowe family Connecticut. The Las Vegas-based Adelson family since the early 1900s. Its lender, Sandton Capital Partners, provided the financing for the deal. acquired the assets of the newspaper operation in June Continued page 3 2 Year-End 2015 4th Quarter Continued from page 2 As part of the transaction, New Media will continue to Taking Aim in Indiana manage the Review-Journal for the new owners. Jeremy Halbreich’s AIM group expanded into Indiana The Review-Journal is Nevada’s largest newspaper. The with the acquisition of family-owned Home News Enter - deal also included five weekly newspapers, Luxury Las prises. Home News owns community daily newspapers in Vegas magazine, Best of Las Vegas and the website Columbus, Greenfield, Franklin and Seymour, as well as a lasvegas.com. number of weekly and monthly publications in the state. At the same time, New Media announced that it had The new company, AIM Media Indiana, is an affiliate of agreed to buy the Business Information Division of Dolan Halbreich’s AIM Media Texas, which acquired Texas LLC, which publishes 39 newspapers in the legal, newspapers from Freedom Communications in 2012. financial, real estate and government affairs sectors. Halbreich is the former chairman and CEO of the Sun- Times Media Group in Chicago and founder of American Paging Normal Mailer Consolidated Media in Texas. A member of a venerable newspaper family bought the The Brown family had owned newspapers in Indiana iconic Village Voice in New York City with plans to since 1872, when Isaac T. Brown founded the Columbus restore the Republican. Home News Enterprises was formed in 1962 journalistic to make additional newspaper acquisitions. greatness for which the Sample Goes West newspaper was Trib Total Media, owner of newspapers in the greater once known. Pittsburgh area, sold two of its dailies and associated The Village Voice weekly newspapers east of the city to an affiliate of was acquired by a Sample Media Group. company Sample picked up the Kittanning Leader Times and the controlled by Connellsville Daily Courier, along with weekly titles Peter D. Barbey, generally clustered southeast of Pittsburgh. Sample’s president of the existing holdings include the daily in nearby Latrobe. Reading (PA) Separately, Trib Total Media said it would close its daily Eagle and a newspapers in McKeesport and Monessen, south of member of the Pittsburgh, after failing to find buyers for these two. Trib family that has owned the eastern Pennsylvania Total Media has been in the process of refocusing its newspaper since 1796. business in the region following the death of its founder, Founded in 1955 by Norman Mailer and others, the Richard Mellon Scaife. Village Voice is America’s first alternative newspaper. It Trib Total Media will publish three editions of its flagship has been a winner of Pulitzer Prizes and has published newspaper based in Greensburg: Tribune-Review many famous writers in its history, including Allen Westmoreland edition, Tribune-Review Pittsburgh edition Ginsberg, Ezra Pound, James Baldwin and Tom Stoppard. and Tribune-Review Valley News Dispatch edition Underground cartoonists also have gotten their start in the newspaper, such as R. Crumb and Matt Groening. Adams Takes Two In making the acquisition, Barbey said, “The Village Adams Publishing Group continued to grow with the ad - Voice continues to be one of America’s great newspaper dition of newspapers in Idaho and Ohio in separate deals. stories, and, to me, the Voice belongs to New York much In Idaho, Adams acquired the daily Idaho Falls Post more than it belongs to any individual owner.