Seattle Times Completes Sale Of Maine Properties

JERRY HARKAVY

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The financially struggling Seattle Times Co. on Monday sold its Blethen Maine newspapers, including the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram, to an investor group led by a Pennsylvania publisher.

Terms of Monday's sale were not disclosed. The Seattle Times was reported to have paid upward of $200 million in 1998 for the former Guy Gannett chain, but the price that newspapers fetch has declined sharply amid a drop in ad revenues and the migration of readers to the Internet. Guy Gannett was a family-run business with no connection to the much bigger Gannett Co.

Richard Connor, a Bangor native who is editor and publisher of the Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., signed a purchase agreement in November, but the sale was put off while he scrambled to line up financing.

Blethen Maine also includes the Kennebec Journal in Augusta, the Morning Sentinel in Waterville and the mainetoday.com Web site.

"We are very pleased to invest in an exceptional portfolio of media and real estate assets, and I am honored to have the opportunity to lead our new company," Connor said in a statement. "I've known these papers my entire life and understand their considerable value as critical information sources within their community and throughout the state."