Bids Due on Two McClatchy Papers

PHILADELPHIA — Today is the deadline for investor groups to bid for the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, according to a person familiar with the process.

McClatchy Co. agreed in March to pay $4.5 billion in cash and stock to acquire San Jose-based Knight Ridder Inc., the parent company of the Inquirer and the Daily News.

The deal gave Sacramento-based McClatchy 32 additional newspapers, but the publisher said it would sell 12 of them, mostly because they are in slower-growing markets. The exception was the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press, which is being sold because of antitrust concerns.

At least half a dozen groups have expressed interest in the two Philadelphia papers, including Avista Capital Partners; Yucaipa Cos., the investment firm controlled by L.A. billionaire Ron Burkle and a financial backer of the newspapers’ labor union; a group of Philadelphia-area investors led by public-relations executive Brian Tierney and home builder Bruce Toll of Toll Bros. Inc.; Onex Corp. of Toronto; Mortimer Zuckerman’s Daily News LP, publisher of the New York Daily News; and Black Press Ltd. of Victoria, Canada.

The union group said Monday that it would join the fray.

“We are making a bid, definitely. We’ll make it tomorrow,” said Robert Hall, a former publisher of the Inquirer and the Daily News who is advising the group led by Yucaipa and the newspaper union.

A McClatchy spokeswoman and other potential bidders declined to comment.

Last month, McClatchy agreed to sell the San Jose Mercury News, the Contra Costa Times, the Monterey County Herald and the Pioneer Press to MediaNews Group Inc. for $1 billion in a complicated deal that involved additional financing from Hearst Corp.

Shares of McClatchy rose $2.25 to $46.55 Monday.