Dan's Papers Sold to an Ohio Chain

By Kate Maier
   
 (07/26/2007)   A Cincinnati-based newspaper group moved last week to acquire Dan’s Papers from News Communications Inc., which has owned it and its associated holdings since 1988.

    Roy Brown, the president and C.E.O. of Brown Publishing, would not disclose the price of the sale, which is expected to close by late August. Dan Rattiner, the publisher, editor in chief, and founder of the 47-year-old free weekly, said he had been assured by his new boss that he would maintain editorial control, but he also expressed a little skepticism.

    “If somebody buys something, they own it,” he said. Mr. Brown, whose company owns 18 paid daily papers and 62 paid and free weeklies in Ohio, said this was not his first foray into New York. He also owns the Hudson Yards Cafe, a restaurant in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen. He described the acquisition of Dan’s Papers from News Communications as an “opportunistic situation.” He said he had had his eye on the Dan’s Papers chain, which includes The Montauk Pioneer, a version of the parent paper, the glossy magazine Hamptons Style, and dans hamptons.com, for some time.

    “Through mutual friends I came to know” James A. Finkelstein, the C.E.O. of News Communications,” Mr Brown said. “His family has owned the paper for a long time. Over time I think I was able to twist his arm a little bit,” he said in a phone interview on Monday. Mr. Finkelstein could not be reached for comment.

    A Business Wire press release from Mr. Finkelstein on Friday stated, however, that Dan’s “publications are very different than our other properties and it made strategic sense for us to sell.” “I had a partial stake in it until 2003,” said Mr. Rattiner, who sold the rest of his share to News Communications that year. “This is not new.” Mr. Brown said that the fact that Dan’s Papers is “not a traditional newspaper” made it more desirable.     “Our view is it’s obvious they’ve had a tremendous growth cycle over the last 30 years, and the product itself is unique,” he said.

    Mr. Rattiner put out his first local paper, The Montauk Pioneer, on July 1, 1960. His parents lived in that hamlet. By 1968 he had started a string of Dan’s Papers in East Hampton, Southampton, Westhampton Beach, and elsewhere, including the North Fork. Hence the plural “papers.” By the late 1970s, all but The Pioneer had been consolidated. News Communications owns Capital Hill Publishing, which puts out The Hill, the largest publication in Washington devoted to news of Congress, and thehill.com. News Communications also owns the Who’s Who series of biographical directories, including Who’s Who in America.

    For a number of years in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the company was active in the free weekly newspaper market, owning about 15 in the metropolitan area, including Our Town in Manhattan. Mr. Rattiner is familiar with C.E.O.s other than Mr. Finkelstein. The investment banker Wilbur Ross bought a big stake in News Communications in 1996.

    At the time he was married to New York State Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey, and the couple were seen on the South Fork social circuit. In 2002, Conrad Black, the media baron who recently was convicted of several federal felonies, bought major News Communications stock through his Hollinger International Inc. A Hollinger-Finkelstein partnership, which owned 29 percent of the company, was formed, and that price was estimated at $20 million. Mr. Brown said that he has friends in this area and plans to spend more time on the South Fork now that he owns a business here.

    “A long time ago, in a different life, I was an attorney,” he said. His work in Ohio will continue to monopolize most of his time, and Mr. Rattiner’s distinctive personal takes and sometimes satirical accounts of public events will remain the driving force behind Dan’s Papers, he said. “I’d be hard pressed to impose on anything that Dan sees out there from here.”

    According to Mr. Brown, there will not be any major upheaval of editorial staff or content in any of the publications, at least not right away. He said he was a seasoned newspaperman and realizes “it’s the busiest time of the year” here. “There’s nothing specific we plan on doing,” he said. “We understand the unique character of each of these publications.” Mr. Brown was excited about the possibility of expanding on an already sophisticated Web site, danshamptons.com, which includes links to calendar listings, bus schedules, and traffic and weather. If anything, Mr. Brown said, he would “push more toward the new presentation that’s been made on the Web.”