PORTLAND, ME (July 15, 2009) – After being on the block for more than a year, the Portland Press Herald, the Maine Sunday Telegram, and other Maine papers owned by Blethen Maine Newspapers have been sold by the parent company, The Seattle Times Co., for an undisclosed price.
Late Monday the announcement was made that a new company formed by a veteran editor, Rich Connor, has made the purchase. Maine Today Media Inc., headed by Connor, which includes a Dallas, TX, equity firm called HM Capital Partners LLC, closed the deal late Monday, and the terms between the two private parties will not be disclosed.
Connor will be the publisher and editor of the Press Herald and the Morning Sentinel in Waterville, ME, and the Kennebec Journal in Augusta, the state's capital. He's a native of Bangor, ME, and is currently the editor and publisher of the Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre, PA. HM Capital is also the owner of the Times Leader. Before Pennsylvania, Connor was publisher and president of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
The Seattle Times Co. is struggling with debt and the sale of the Maine newspapers should ease some of that pressure, coupled with the closing early this year of the Times' primary competition in town, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Now that the Times is the sole major daily newspaper in the region and they retained a great many Post-Intelligencer customers, as well as picking up the closed-paper's advertisers, the infusion of money from the Maine sale could give the Blethen family some maneuvering room.
The Times, in a statement this afternoon, said the objective of the sale of the Maine properties was "to allow us to focus all of our attention on our newspapers in Washington state during this turbulent time in the economy, while finding a buyer able to give the newspapers in Maine the resources they need to continue to serve their communities."
"While it’s good to have the sale completed, it does not solve the financial challenges we face," the statement said.
The Times bought the Maine properties in 1998 from the Guy Gannett chain for $230 million, probably because of family ties. Seattle Times founder Alden Blethen was a Maine native. Fifteen months ago the struggling Times put the properties up for sale. According to the Associated Press, Connor signed a purchase agreement in November and then spent the past months lining up financing.
The Portland Newspaper Guild reacted to the sale by saying that in today's economic climate, the selling price probably didn't reflect more than the value of the real estate, presses, and equipment.
