The Boston Herald Has Another Potential Buyer
GateHouse might not snatch up the Boston paper.
“We’re with you Ted” by Patrick Rasenberg on Flickr/Creative Commons
Looks like the Boston Herald might not end up the latest purchase by GateHouse Media after all.
The paper announced Tuesday that another buyer has emerged: Tampa-based Revolution Capital Group.
The investment group submitted a $5.75 million bid in bankruptcy court for the paper, of which $3 million is cash and the rest is severance and paid time off. That’s more combined than a deal worth $5 million reached with GateHouse, which the Herald revealed in December when it announced it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
“We appreciate the increased interest in the Boston Herald companies,” Herald publisher Pat Purcell said in a statement, “and look forward to a vibrant court-managed process to determine what is in the best interest of the newspaper’s future.”
RCG would still plan to slash staffing to about 175 from 240, according to a release. It wouldn’t recognize the current collective bargaining agreement, and would not pay staffers’ pensions.
Still, the paper’s union views it favorably given the circumstances, and is glad there is more than one offer on the table. Union rep O’Ryan Johnson tells the Boston Business Journal it’s “a superior bid that protects our members and delivers on some of the promises that were made under our existing collective bargaining agreement.”
Revolution Capital Group is run by Robert Loring, a Scituate native and Boston College alum who interestingly enough was once a Herald sports intern. His investment group once owned the Tampa Tribune, which merged with the Tampa Bay Times in 2016.
Any interested buyers can submit bids to buy the paper at auction, which has yet to be scheduled, and the Delaware bankruptcy court has to sign off on a sale.
GateHouse Media, based in Pittsford, New York, now owns more than 100 newspapers in Massachusetts and “operates in 540 markets across 36 states,” according to its website. The company grew out of the Community Newspaper Co., which Purcell sold to Liberty Group Publishing for an estimated $225 million in 2006.
