Bankruptcy judge approves sale of most of Ohio-based newspaper chain’s assets to lenders

Judge OKs sale of Ohio-based newspaper chain

CINCINNATI — A federal bankruptcy judge in New York on Friday approved the sale of most of the assets of Ohio-based newspaper chain Brown Publishing Co. to the company’s lenders for about $21.8 million.

Judge Dorothy Eisenberg of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of New York authorized the sale of the majority of the assets of the newspaper chain to Ohio Community Media LLC.

Pittsburgh’s PNC Bank is the agent for lenders that also include Wells Fargo Bank, Allied Irish Bank, AIB Debt Management, Brown Brothers and Harriman & Co., Huntington National Bank and Prudential Insurance Company of America, according to court records.

In buying the assets, the lenders agreed to reduce their portion of the more than $72 million Brown Publishing owes them by nearly $22 million, according to the order.

The judge also approved a separate sale of Brown Publishing’s New York newspaper group, Dan’s Papers Inc., to Dan’s Papers Holdings LLC for about $1.8 million.

PNC spokesman Fred Solomon declined to comment Friday.

Messages were left for attorneys for Brown Publishing. Calls to Brown Publishing headquarters in the Cincinnati suburb of Blue Ash were not answered.

An insiders group led by Brown Publishing president and CEO Roy Brown had the winning bid of $22.4 million in the auction to buy the company, but could not complete the purchase after its lender withdrew.

The sale involves company assets in Ohio, New York, Texas, South Carolina, Illinois, Iowa, Colorado, Utah, Arizona and Wyoming. The chain that includes 15 dailies and other publications filed for bankruptcy protection April 30.

Among the companies’ newspapers are The Delaware Gazette in central Ohio and the Piqua Daily Call, the Troy Daily News and the Wilmington News Journal in western Ohio.

Brown Publishing was founded in 1920.

(This version CORRECTS Corrects insiders bid to $22.4 million sted $24 million.)