The chief executive of CanWest's flagship National Post newspaper has lined up financial backers to bid on the media goliath's Canadian newspaper chain, local media said Friday.
Paul Godfrey, former chief executive of Sun Media and the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team, has secured private equity to finance a management-led buyout of the struggling newspapers, said The Globe and Mail reported.
The 12 Canadian newspapers are to be put up for auction in the coming months and could fetch up to one billion dollars (925 million US), amid a CanWest Global Communications Corporation restructuring, the daily said.
"I am an employee of CanWest and my loyalty is to CanWest," Godfrey told AFP when asked about the report.
In 1996, he led a management buyout of the Toronto Sun Publishing Corporation -- now Sun Media -- that proved wildly successful for its backers.
"It is not surprising that there is interest in the Canwest publishing group as it has consistently out-performed the industry and its brands dominate their markets like no other," said CanWest spokesman John Dougla.
"However, any suggestions that they are up for sale is pure speculation."
According to The Globe and Mail, CanWest's lenders, who are owed 2.5 billion dollars (2.3 billion US), would end up controlling its 12 dailies in a debt for equity swap and sell them.
The Asper family, heirs to the founder of the media empire, meanwhile, would lose control of CanWest, the paper said.
Copyright 2009  AFP Global Edition
