AAN Association of Alternative Newsmedia

Chicago Reader Up For Sale

march 12, 2012 12:12 pm

The Chicago Reader — one of three remaining papers in the Creative Loafing group — is up for sale, reports Crain's Chicago Business:

The firm handling the talks, Bulkey Capital L.P., has talked with at least two Chicago-area parties, but no deal seemed imminent, the sources said. The Chicago Sun-Times is one of the potential buyers that was approached, they said.

In August 2009, the investment firm Atalaya Capital Management acquired Creative Loafing, Inc. and its six publications after a year-long bankruptcy process.

Since then, the firm has shut down Creative Loafing Sarasota and sold the Charlotte and Tampa Creative Loafing publications.

Update: Chicago Reader media reporter Michael Miner isn't buying the Crain's article. "On the other hand, we've considered ourselves on the sales block since the [Atalaya acquisition]," he writes. "It's an investment firm, not a publishing company, and no one here or there has pretended for a second they were in journalism for the long haul."

View full article at Crain's Chicago Business