Buyer makes offer for Colorado Daily

Business Report Correspondent

BOULDER ? A prospective buyer has submitted a letter of intent to purchase the Colorado Daily, and the Daily’s board of directors has approved it and returned it to the buyer for the next step ? an offer letter within 45 days.

Russell Puls, publisher of the Daily, would not disclose terms or name the potential buyer. He said the property, the newspaper business and its commercial printing operation are for sale, and the prospective buyer would take the whole package. He also requested that Puls stay on.

Front Range Publishing Co. Inc., owner of the Colorado Daily, decided to sell the newspaper in October to get out from under debt created in part when its former finance director allegedly embezzled nearly $250,000, as reported in The Business Report’s Oct. 20 edition.

The Daily was scheduled to present a plan for paying creditors to the federal bankruptcy court on Dec 18. The newspaper’s Boulder-based lawyer, Rich Nehls of Lirtzman, Nehls and Hepner, said instead of the plan, the newspaper entered an agreement with the court that allows the Daily to use accounts receivable to operate the company for at least 90 days. “It will help the Daily facilitate a sale,” Nehls said.

“The bankruptcy court has been fair to let us continue,” Puls said. “We are looking forward to a profitable year. Ad revenues are up substantially, and we have received support from our customers.” Ad sales were up about 20 percent for the last few months, Puls said.

The newspaper’s building is listed for $1.8 million with Ted Simpson of Coldwell Banker Commercial NRT in Boulder. Simpson said it includes a two-story, 13,600-square-foot building on .97 acres at the corner of 55th Street and Central Avenue. Two tenants with leases occupy 5,800 square feet of the building, and the Daily occupies the rest.

Puls said if the property was sold and not the newspaper business, the Daily would be willing to stay and pay market rent for the space or vacate ? whatever the buyer wants. If it had to move, the Daily’s staff would want the offices to remain in Boulder, and Simpson would find new space.

Puls would not disclose separate asking prices for the newspaper business or the commercial printing operation. The Daily’s presses are about two blocks from the newspaper offices.

The Daily’s Web site, which it receives for free through campusengine.com, is located at www.coloradodaily.com. When The Business Report checked the site on Dec. 21, however, it was not functioning. An article in the Sacramento Bee on Dec. 19 said campusengine.com “was in last-ditch efforts to negotiate a merger that would keep the company from failing.” Puls said he didn’t know the status of the Daily’s deal with campusengine.com. “We talked to them Dec. 18, and they didn’t say they were going out of business,” he said.

The Daily joined campusengine.com not as a university-based newspaper, but as a publication targeted for the 18- to 30-year-old age group. Campusengine.com markets newspapers to advertisers and give the papers a commission on the national advertising. “They aggressively pursued us,” Puls said. “They called me every day until I signed. I know they’ve had layoffs, but as far as I know, they’re still in business.”

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