For sale signs went up in front of the Timmins Daily Press building on Cedar Street S. yesterday morning and the location for future operations of the venerable and historic newspaper is unclear at the moment.
Timminstoday.com has calls into Bruno Gendron the senior real estate agent for Royal Lepage, the company that is spearheading the sale of the sizeable commercial lot at 147 Cedar St. S., which has been listed at $1,199,000.
In addition calls have been made to Postmedia head office and Timmins Daily Press local management to obtain information on the implications of the sale of the downtown Timmins building on the operations of the newspaper.
The Timmins Daily Press was founded by a struggling electrical salesman named Roy Thomson in the 1930s. It was the very first newspaper acquisition by Thomson on his way to becoming one of the world's most powerful newspaper barons and being bestowed the title of Lord Thomson of Fleet.
Thomson would eventually own more than 200 newspapers including The London Times.
In the 1990s, the Thomson newspaper group sold the Daily Press to Conrad Black's Hollinger Inc. a company that dates back to Hollinger mines in Timmins started by Ben Hollinger and owned by Noah Timmins for whom the city is named.
In 2000, Hollinger sold the paper to Osprey Media which in turn sold to Sun Media which was bought out by Quebecor.
On October 6, 2014 Postmedia Network Canada Corp. announced it had an agreement to purchase from Quebecor Media Inc. its Sun Media Corporation subsidiary and its holdings of 175 English language newspapers, specialty publications and digital properties. This included the Sun chain of dailies, consisting of The Toronto Sun, The Ottawa Sun, The Winnipeg Sun, The Calgary Sun and The Edmonton Sun, as well as The London Free Press and the free 24 Hours dailies in Toronto and Vancouver. The deal also brought the Timmins Daily Press and Timmins Times into the Postmedia fold. The deal was finalized in April, 2015.
On July 7, 2016 Postmedia announced a proposed recapitalization transaction. According to a Postmedia news release issued on July 7 it is hoped the move will significantly reduce Postmedia’s outstanding indebtedness and annual interest costs, improve its capital structure and liquidity, and result in an enhanced financial foundation for Postmedia.
The key elements in the restructuring are to extend payment due dates on first liens against the company to July 2021 and second liens payments to July 2023. First liens owed are reduced to C$225 million while the second liens are approximately US $268.6 million.
According to the news release Postmedia has reduced its total debt by C$307 million and annual cash expenses by about C$50 million. In the news release Postmedia pledges to keep its obligations to employees, customers and suppliers.
Part of the restructuring and re-capitalization plan announced last week includes the sale of property deemed to be duplicative and unessential to its operation.
TimminsToday is not affiliated with the Timmins Daily Press, the Timmins Times or Postmedia
