Knight Ridder, the second-largest newspaper company in the United States, agreed late on Sunday to a $4,5-billion cash and stock buyout by the McClatchy Company, The New York Times reported on Monday.
Citing sources involved in the negotiations, the newspaper said the deal was expected to be announced on Monday.
The sale comes as the newspaper industry is gripped by uncertainty, and readers have begun to drift away from printed newspapers whose websites have experienced sharp gains in use, the report said.
The sale may help assuage some investors who are nervous about the values of newspaper companies. Knight Ridder commanded a premium of about 25% for its shares from the time it put itself up for sale in November, the paper said.
McClatchy, which is based in Sacramento and publishes The Sacramento Bee and The Minneapolis Star Tribune, among others, was the only major newspaper company to submit a final bid for Knight Ridder, publisher of 32 daily newspapers, including such venerable papers as The Miami Herald, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The San Jose Mercury News, according to The Times.
While it attracted interest from some big publishers, including Gannett, the largest chain in the United States, most major newspaper companies like The Washington Post Company, the Tribune Company and Dow Jones passed on the auction entirely, underscoring just how unsettled the biggest players are about their own business, the report said. – AFP