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Conrad Black's Hollinger Inc. will buy the Chicago Sun-Times for $180 million in cash.
In a surprise announcement Feb. 28, officials of American Publishing Co., Hollinger's U.S. newspaper division, and current Sun-Times management and owners said the deal had been informally discussed for two or three years.
Serious discussions began in November, said F. David Radler, chairman of American Publishing and president and chief operating officer of Vancouver, British Columbia-based Hollinger.
For Black, a feisty Canadian conservative, the Sun-Times purchase gives him the kind of high-profile U.S. newspaper property that eluded him when Mortimer Zuckerman edged him out for ownership of the New York Daily News.
Black's sprawling empire includes several impressive newspapers on different continents, including the London Daily Telegraph; Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald; Financial Post, Canada's national financial daily; and Jerusalem Post.
Since its creation in 1986, American Publishing has bought papers through good times and bad.
However, its 97 papers mostly are small-town monopolies, typified by such flags as the Olney (I11.) Daily Mail, Augusta (Kan.) Daily Gazette and Beatrice (Neb.) Daily Sun.
With the purchase of the 535,793-circulation Sun-Times,...