Looks like the visits from prospective buyers are over, and those still interested are doing due diligence, looking a the the books of the seven newspapers being sold. Each will arrive at an offer and submit a bid from there. That means the next few weeks will be critical.

Besides GateHouse Media, we can add Lee Enterprises to the list of serious suitors. Lee owns the Pantagraph and loves to own many papers in a single region to keep costs low by consolidating operations. They share that philosophy with GateHouse.

We believe there is a third serious party, but haven't been to make an identification. It's likely a group of equity investors. It's likely not a group headed by former Peoria Mayor Dave Ransburg. We believe he's out of contention. That makes sense, since separating the Journal Star from the other Copley papers for the sale would require one MAJOR offer, and would set the sale of the other papers back to Square 1. The most money will be made by selling us as a group or, similarly, by separating the papers into two sales by region. In this case, that would put the three Ohio papers together and the four in Illinois in a second group (Peoria, Springfield, Lincoln and Galesburg).