news-record.com

GREENSBORO The News & Record will continue "business as usual" while its parent company contemplates purchase offers for all or parts of its news and information company, newspaper officials said Thursday.

Landmark Communications, the News & Record's owner since 1965, said Thursday that it has hired two investment banks to help it explore business options "including the possible sale of Landmark's businesses."

In addition to The Weather Channel, weather.com and other weather-related ventures, Landmark also owns major daily newspapers in Norfolk and Roanoke, Va.; two television stations; smaller community newspapers; an Internet marketing company; and a data and telecommunications company.

News & Record Publisher Robin Saul spent Thursday afternoon meeting with employees and managers. He said Landmark began considering a sale in November, and he learned of the plan Dec. 13.

Landmark's chairman and chief executive, Frank Batten Jr., has said he does not want the properties sold to private equity firms whose only goal is to turn a quick profit and sell the newspapers, Saul said.

"Their preference is to engage businesses that want to run the properties we own," Saul said. "They would prefer the investor to be an ongoing entity."

Saul said that until further decisions are made, the News & Record will do "business as usual."

"We run this business the best we can for our employees, our shareholders and our community" Saul said. "And that's not going to change."

News & Record Editor John Robinson said readers should see no difference in news coverage.

"We will continue to aggressively publish the news," he said.

"Through honest and intelligent journalism, we will cover the community fairly and completely. That was our priority yesterday, and it's our priority tomorrow."

Civic leaders expressed concern Thursday about the effect a possible sale could have on the community.

"Landmark is a good corporate citizen," said Jim Melvin, a former mayor and president of the Joseph M. Bryan Foundation. "A new owner might decide, 'We ain't going to do anything.' "

The News & Record, through the Landmark Foundation, has contributed an average of $300,000 a year to community nonprofits in the past five years, Saul said.

An official at the United Way of Greater Greensboro said that over the past decade, the News & Record and its employees have contributed more than $1 million to its campaigns.

In 2006, the company ranked as United Way's 22nd largest corporate donor.

"As important as the money is to the community, of equal importance is the leadership the newspaper has provided and the important voice ... in protecting the public interest," said Neil Belenky, president of United Way. "I think any viable community has to be worried when any of those are diminished. ... The concern about any of this is absentee ownership."

Melvin said there could be interest in local ownership of the News & Record.

"I think it would be worth discussion," he said.

"If something makes economic sense, then you put a group together to see if they could buy it."

Landmark executives have declined to say how much the paper might be worth.

Melvin said the Bryan Foundation, whose money helped bring about the downtown baseball stadium and Center City Park, would not be involved in buying the paper. "We don't make those types of investments," he said.

Richard F. Barry III, Landmark's vice chairman, declined to say why the company is looking at a sale during a slow economic period.

"We're deferring that type of question," he said. "It'll come out later."

Barry declined to release financial information about privately held Landmark or the News & Record.

Barry said if Landmark does sell the newspaper, it could be sold individually or as a package with its sister papers in Roanoke and Norfolk, Va.

"We would consider whatever combinations make sense," he said.

A sale is not a forgone conclusion, analysts say; daily newspapers, which once returned some of the fattest profit margins of any business, have been battling declining circulation and revenues for the past few years.

With those problems and the continued movement of advertising to the Web, traditional newspapers aren't attracting the buyers or prices they once did, said Rick Edmonds, the media business analyst for the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists in St. Petersburg, Fla.

The Weather Channel could inspire a bidding war, he said. "I don't think that's true of some of (Landmark's) more traditional media assets, particularly the newspapers," Edmonds said.

"It's not a very good time to sell. The pool of buyers especially those who might pay a nice premium as goes with these sales I don't think that's very deep right now," Edmonds said.

Stocks of public media companies are dragging after poor results in 2007 and aren't likely to improve in 2008, wrote analyst Nat Worden at thestreet.com.

The potential sale of the News & Record comes at a time when corporate buyers are scarce but local ownership of newspapers has experienced a slight uptick.

"We really had a period of 40 years or so, from the late '60s on, when big companies were buying up locally owned papers," Edmonds said. "Over the last couple of years, there has been some movement in the other (direction). ... I think it is too early to call it a trend. It is a new factor in the marketplace."

Contact Richard M. Barron at 373-7371 or richard.barron@news-record.com

Contact Donald W. Patterson at 373-7027 or don.patterson@news-record.com