More KRI headlines

More headlines on the possibility of a sale of Knight Ridder:

From Editor & Publisher:

New Twist: Guild Leads Effort To Buy 8 Knight Ridder Papers

By Joe Strupp
NEW YORK Leaders of The Newspaper Guild-Communication Workers of America are seeking investors to purchase the eight Knight Ridder daily newspapers that are represented by the guild, they announced Thursday. Guild President Linda Foley told E&P the effort was aimed at allowing the guild shops under Knight Ridder control to be purchased by companies more likely to avoid severe cost-cutting that has plagued the industry.

The proposal comes as Knight Ridder, which owns 32 newspapers, is on the selling block following demands from its largest shareholders that the "undervalued" company be sold.

In a statement released this afternoon, guild leaders said they had retained two advisory firms - Duff & Phelps Securities, LLC, of Chicago and Ownership Associates, Inc. of Cambridge, MA - to "work with the union to attempt a 'worker friendly' buyout of certain properties of the Knight Ridder newspaper chain."

Click on the headline above to read the E&P story.

From Bloomberg News printed on page B1 in the Beacon Journal:

Union plan to bid on Beacon, other newspapers rebuffed
Publisher Knight Ridder says it will only consider offers for all of its assets

By Greg Baumann
Bloomberg News
Knight Ridder Inc., which put itself up for sale last month, has rebuffed an initial effort by union workers to bid on the Akron Beacon Journal and several of its sister newspapers.

Knight Ridder and its investment bank, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., told the Newspaper Guild-Communications Workers of America on Wednesday that the company will only consider bids for all of its assets, union President Linda Foley said Thursday.

Knight Ridder, which owns 32 daily newspapers and is the nation's second largest newspaper publisher based on circulation, is considering a joint buyout bid from other newspaper groups and private equity firms such as Blackstone Group LP, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Providence Equity Partners Inc. The newspaper chain put itself up for sale following pressure from institutional shareholders.

The union will keep trying to persuade San Jose, Calif.-based Knight Ridder to consider a ``worker friendly'' offer for some of its properties, Foley said.

``We've reached out to them on a number of levels, being aware they are just taking bids for the entire company,'' she said.

Polk Laffoon, a Knight Ridder spokesman, didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.

Shares of Knight Ridder fell 4 cents Thursday to $62.75. They are down 6.3 percent this year.

Click here to read the story in the Beacon Journal