Categories: OLD Media Moves

Creditors oppose bids for business weeklies

Claude Solnik of Long Island Business News reports that some creditors have objected to the bids for parts of Brown Publishing Co., the owner of a number of business weeklies and magazines across the country in Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization.

A bid led by the company’s executives would purchase the business media outlets. The company owns the Des Moines Business Record in Iowa, the Fort Worth Business Press in Texas and the Boulder County Business Report in Colorado and a majority ownership of the Northern Colorado Business Report in Fort Collins, and the Wyoming Business Report in Cheyenne.

It also owns the Charleston Regional Business Journal, the Columbia Regional Business Report, SC Biz and GSA Business, all in South Carolina. It also owns Utah Business magazine.

Solnik writes, “But the creditors’ committee argues the sale was too swift and bidders weren’t clearly informed that real estate could be acquired separately.

“The committee believes that the process pursued by the debtors and its representatives was designed to be anything but a thorough, robust competitive process,’ argued Manhattan-based Cole, Shotz, Meisel, Forman & Leonard, representing the unsecured creditors’ committee, which opposes the sale.

“‘We objected primarily to the proposed sale of certain real estate,’ John H. Drucker, an attorney at Cole, Shotz, said today. ‘We previously expressed our opposition to the speed of the sale and the manner in which the marketing was being conducted.’

“But Brown Publishing contends speed is essential to complete a sale before debts accumulate, potentially reducing the amount the firm could obtain for assets.”