Topping previous bids for Freedom Communications Inc., USA Today publisher Gannett Co. and MediaNews Group Inc., which controls eight Southland newspapers, have teamed up to offer $1.83 billion in cash for the Orange County Register parent, according to people familiar with the details.
McLean, Va.-based Gannett, a public company that is the largest U.S. newspaper chain, and MediaNews, a private Denver concern, bid $235 a share for Freedom, which controls 65 newspapers and eight television stations, sources said.
Freedom, based in Irvine, has 7.8 million shares distributed among about 90 members of the Hoiles family. The patriarch of the clan, R.C. Hoiles, bought the Register for $750,000 in 1935. He died in 1970.
The Gannett-MediaNews bid eclipses previous offers, which had been described as being in the $210- to $230-a-share range.
These included an offer backed by fourth-generation descendants, who planned to buy out dissident family members using high-interest financing from takeover firms Blackstone Group and Providence Equity Partners Inc. That bid would keep family members on the board along with representatives of the investment firms.
It couldn't be immediately determined whether backers of the fourth-generation bid would be making a counteroffer.
Freedom spokeswoman Stephanie Miclot and various shareholders declined to comment on the new offer, first reported over the weekend in the New York Post.
Executives at Gannett and MediaNews wouldn't comment. Several shareholders also declined to comment, including Timothy C. Hoiles, one of R.C. Hoiles' grandsons. He has been among the most outspoken family members advocating selling the private company.
The deal, if completed, would add the Register, along with Freedom daily newspapers in Barstow and Victorville, to MediaNews' chain of papers ringing Los Angeles.
MediaNews owns the Los Angeles Daily News and the Long Beach Press-Telegram. In addition, it is the majority owner in a partnership with Gannett and Stephens Media Group that operates papers in Pasadena, West Covina, Whittier, Ontario, San Bernardino and Redlands.
The resulting company would be able to cut costs by sharing regional news. It would also provide an alternative to the Tribune Co.-owned Los Angeles Times for national advertisers aiming at a broad readership in Southern California suburbs -- a strategy that MediaNews Chief Executive William Dean Singleton has pursued through a series of acquisitions.
