Philadelphia Media Holdings
| Limited liability company | |
| Industry | Media |
| Fate | Bankruptcy |
| Successor | Philadelphia Media Network |
| Founded | Philadelphia, U.S. (2006) |
| Founder | Brian Tierney |
| Defunct | December 8, 2010 |
| Headquarters | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
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Key people
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Brian Tierney (Founder and CEO (2006–2010)) Joseph Bondi (CEO (2010)) |
Philadelphia Media Holdings LLC was an American holding company located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded by Brian Tierney in 2006, the company owned The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News. After The McClatchy Company bought Knight Ridder in 2006, it announced it would sell, among other newspapers, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News. Interested in buying the papers, Brian Tierney assembled a group of Philadelphia businesspeople and investors to make a bid. In May 2006 Philadelphia Media Holdings bought the papers for US$515 million plus the assumption of the newspapers' liabilities. Declining circulation and ad revenue for The Inquirer and Daily News caused financial strain, which resulted in the filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company's creditors acquired the newspapers at auction and established a new holding company, Philadelphia Media Network, in 2010.
In 2005, media company Knight Ridder's dropped to US$52.42 from US$80 in 2004. This drop in stock price prompted the company's three top stock holders to pressure Knight Ridder's board of directors to sell the company to raise the price of its shares. Knight Ridder was put up for sale in November 2005, with The McClatchy Company announcing it was purchasing the company in March 2006. Along with the purchase, the McClatchy Company announced it was selling twelve of the least profitable Knight Ridder newspapers, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and the two papers' joint website, Philly.com.
Before the announcement of the sale of Knight Ridder, Brian Tierney, the founder and former CEO of the public relations and advertising firm Tierney Communications, had expressed interest in purchasing the Philadelphia papers. After the announcement of McClathcy's plan to sell the papers, Tierney began to assemble a group of advisers and investors to purchase the papers with. Tierney formed a group of Philadelphia area investors and businesspeople to form Philadelphia Media Holdings. Almost all of the investors were either former clients of Tierney's or were with him on the board of directors of The Episcopal Academy. While Tierney found investors, Citizens Financial Group's president Stephen Steinour arranged financing. Working with Tierney a month before they even knew if the Philadelphia papers would be for sale, Steinour arranged US$450 million in financing from Citizens Financial Group's owner, the Royal Bank of Scotland.
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