Lee Enterprises tries to avert bankruptcy

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Updated: January 23, 2012 3:07AM

Lee Enterprises — which owns 53 newspapers in 23 states, including the Times of Northwest Indiana and six papers in Illinois with a total circulation of 165,000 — is trying refinance debt as it seeks to avoid bankruptcy, Bloomberg reported.

Lee must refinance $1 billion of loans and bonds, Bloomberg said. The publisher’s stock is down 67 percent in the past year.

“We are in substantive and productive discussions with key lenders about an extension of our credit agreement,” Mary Junck, Lee’s chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement acquired by Bloomberg.

“Investor sentiment will improve when questions about our refinancing are resolved,” she said.

In Illinois, Lee publishes the Pantagraph in Bloomington; the Southern Illinoisan in Carbondale; the Herald & Review in Decatur; the Times-Courier in Charleston, and the Journal Gazette in Matoon.

It also owns the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; the Wisconsin State Journal and the Arizona Daily Star.

Lee’s advertising revenue, which Bloomberg said represents 72 percent of Lee’s total revenue, fell 8.9 percent to $560.1 million last year, following a 21.6 percent drop in 2009.