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Monday, Mar 18, 2024
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Beverly Hills Firm to Buy Union-Tribune

The Copley Press Inc. has entered into an agreement to sell The San Diego Union-Tribune, the city’s only major daily newspaper, for an undisclosed price to Beverly Hills-based Platinum Equity, the paper reported March 18. The deal is expected to be finalized in the second quarter.

According to the private equity firm’s Web site, the Union-Tribune would be its first newspaper acquisition. It has specialized in the acquisition of information technology, telecommunications, logistics, metals services, manufacturing and distribution firms since its founding in 1995.

Within the last two years, the La Jolla-based publishing company has sold off its holdings, including papers in the Midwest and the Daily Breeze of Torrance.

The Borrego Sun, a biweekly in Borrego Springs, was also added to the list on March 18.

Copley’s chief operating officer and executive vice president, Harold W. Fuson Jr., was not immediately available for comment.

The Union-Tribune went on the block in July. It has had at least three rounds of staff cutbacks, including reporters and editors. The paper said that advertising, its primary source of revenue, has declined 40 percent since 2006. In July 2008, it reported that its circulation was more than 300,000 on weekdays and 350,000 on weekends.

Copley Press founder Ira Copley, who started his business with newspapers in his home state of Illinois, purchased the San Diego Union and The Evening Tribune in 1928 from the estate of John D. Spreckels, a sugar magnate and business leader in the city’s early days.

, Connie Lewis

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