A Buyer for The San Diego U-T!

A Beverly Hills company plans to buy The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Buy a newspaper?

Seriously. The company is called Platinum Equity, and LA Observed says their Mark Barnhill is the same Mark Barnhill who used to be managing editor of the Daily News of Los Angeles. [Also see Voice of San Diego.]

Here's the gist from the U-T:

The parent company of The San Diego Union-Tribune announced yesterday that it plans to sell the paper to a Beverly Hills private equity firm that specializes in turning around troubled ventures.

The buyer, Platinum Equity, is a 14-year-old firm headed by billionaire investor Tom Gores. It has purchased companies in industries as diverse as information technology and metal processing.

This is its first newspaper deal. A principal in the firm said newspapers were a logical target, given the steep challenges the industry faces, such as circulation declines and growing online competition.

“There's no question that the newspaper industry is undergoing a period of tremendous upheaval, and we're not blind to that,” Platinum principal Mark Barnhill said. “But that said, we would not be making this acquisition if we were not confident about our ability to succeed in this business and in that market in particular.”

Union-Tribune owner The Copley Press Inc. had been seeking a buyer since July, when it hired investment bankers to explore “strategic options” amid a nationwide decline in newspaper advertising. The Copley family of La Jolla has owned newspapers in San Diego since 1928 but is among relatively few remaining local owners of major newspapers.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Read the full story at The San Diego Union-Tribune.

(Twitter This)

-- TJ Sullivan

---

*** Sign The Petition ***

---