The decision to sell its nine Rhode Island publications had nothing to do with the $700 million debt the Journal Register Co. (NYSE: JRC) has incurred over the years, according to Ricardo Venegas, a JRC spokesperson.
On Friday, the Yardley, Pa.-based company announced the sale of its three daily newspapers – The Call in Woonsocket; The Times in Pawtucket; and The Kent County Daily Times in West Warwick – and its weekly Southern Rhode Island Newspaper Group. As of last night, the $7.6 million sale had not closed.
The purchaser is a company called RISN Operations Inc., about which little is known except that it was incorporated in Delaware and one of its corporate officers is Roland McBride, chief financial officer of Marion, Ill.-based Horizon Publications Inc.
Venegas said JRC had made its decision to sell after reviewing all of its properties last year.
In August, company Chairman and CEO Robert M. Jelenic had said JRC was considering selling its New England properties, to focus on operations that “generate a higher return on capital and produce a higher level of profitability.” The Rhode Island and the Massachusetts newspapers generated about $40 million in revenue for the year ending June 2006, according to JRC’s Web site.
In December, JRC sold two of its Massachusetts-based community newspapers – The Herald News in Fall River and the Taunton Daily Gazette in Taunton – to Gatehouse Media for $70 million in cash and $2 million in estimated working capital.
Additional information on the JRC and its publications is available at www.journalregister.com. Information on Horizon Publications, the owner of daily and weekly newspapers in 16 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces, is available at horizonpublicationsinc.com.
