McClatchy, a Family Newspaper Business, Heads Toward Hedge-Fund Ownership

McClatchy, a Family Newspaper Business, Heads Toward Hedge-Fund Ownership

In keeping with a nationwide industry trend, a finance firm seems poised to take control of the publisher of The Miami Herald and The Sacramento Bee.

The offices of The Sacramento Bee and the headquarters of McClatchy in Sacramento, the home city of the family's newspaper business since 1857.Credit...Salgu Wissmath for The New York TimesJuly 6, 2020, 7:19 p.m. ET

The McClatchy family has been in journalism since 1857, when its flagship publication, The Daily Bee, chronicled the latest for residents of Sacramento in the wake of the gold rush. Now, in keeping with a trend that has placed hundreds of American news outlets in the hands of the finance industry, the McClatchy Company and its 30 newspapers are likely to end up the property of a hedge fund.

The publisher of The Miami Herald, The Charlotte Observer and The Kansas City Star filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February, after more than a decade of layoffs and plummeting revenue. Bids for McClatchy were due last week, with an auction supervised by U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan to start on Wednesday.

The company, which is led by the family scion Kevin S. McClatchy and Craig Forman, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and