Reading Eagle Auction Schedule For This Week

Word swept through the Reading Eagle last Friday that newspaper baron and Pittsburgh Pirates owner Robert Nutting was touring the presses and offices, triggering speculation that his Ogden Newspapers could bid Wednesday on the distressed 230-employee Pennsylvania newspaper.

Nutting did not return a phone call placed by philly.com to Ogden headquarters in Wheeling, W.Va., on Monday. Among Ogden’s 12 Pennsylvania papers are the Altoona Mirror, Williamsport Sun-Gazette, and Warren Times Observer.

Eagle spokesperson Connie Andrews declined to comment, saying information on possible bidders was confidential.

Potential buyers of the Eagle are expected at the law office of Stevens & Lee in Reading by 5 p.m. Wednesday.

The Eagle has set $5 million as the lowest acceptable bid for the publisher of a newspaper with a 50,000-copy Sunday print run. Qualified bidders will then participate in an auction on Friday, also at Stevens & Lee — only a few blocks from the Eagle.

The Friday auction will be canceled if there is only one qualified bidder, or none.

“I expect there to be more than one [bid], but you never know until you get them,” said Robert Lapowsky, the Stevens & Lee bankruptcy attorney who represents the Eagle.

The auction will be closed to the public and media, with only debtors and qualified bidders participating. Bidders can boost their offers by $100,000 per round in Friday’s auction.

The Eagle filed for Chapter 11 protection in March and has sought an expedited sale with $2.1 million in 2019 losses through March 31, bankruptcy documents show.

WEEU 830 AM (20 Kw-D, 6 Kw-N) Daytime 2 mV/m contour

The Reading Eagle Co. also owns local radio station WEEU 830 AM, a Schuylkill County weekly, and a website with 3.2 million page views a month. The company lost $4 million on $28 million in revenue in 2018. It’s partly owned by two of the richest families in America, the Barbeys and DuPonts.

Reporters, printers, advertising reps and others fear for their jobs. The company last week laid off six employees, and said on Monday that “it is impossible to speculate whether there will be more cutbacks in the future.”