Thomson Corporation Sells Newspaper Assets

On June 13, 2000, the Thomson Corporation announced the latest of a series of transactions that will see the company divest the majority of its newspaper assets (excluding The Globe and Mail) in the US and Canada. The sales to date involve 55 daily newspapers and more than 75 non-daily newspapers in 13 states and three provinces. Proceeds from the sales to date are in excess of $2 billion dollars, and have involved four different purchasers: Gannett Co. Inc; Community Newspaper Holdings Inc.; Media General, Inc.; and The Copley Press, Inc.

Thomson anticipates that its remaining US newspapers will be sold shortly, with the Canadian newspapers to be disposed of by the end of the year or in early 2001.

Torys is acting for Thomson on the divestitures with a team that includes Bradley Cost, Joseph Romagnoli, Carl Walker, Alexandra Kau, Jeffrey Gracer (environmental) and Joseph Tambaro (real estate) in New York and Richard Balfour, Michael Siltala, Cameron Koziskie, James Welkoff (tax) and Jay Holsten (competition) in Toronto. For the purchasers: Nixon Peabody LLP in Washington, D.C. is acting for Gannett Co., Inc.; Quadra Corporate Advisors, LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina is acting for Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc.; Dow, Lohnes & Albertson, PLLC in Washington, D.C. is acting for Media General, Inc.; Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP in New York is acting for The Copley Press, Inc.