The Beacon-News to be Sold to Tribune Publishing

Tribune Publishing will buy the The Aurora Beacon-News and all of Sun-Times Media’s remaining suburban newspapers, sources tell Robert Feder.

The parent company of the Chicago Tribune would acquire the Sun-Times Media suburban titles on a “very aggressive timeline,” according to Feder, who reports that Sun-Times Media staffers are working to make internal system changes by early November to accommodate the transfer.

Michael Ferro and a group of investors formed Wrapports in 2011 to purchase the Chicago Sun-Times and its suburban news operations. The company was owned from 2009 to 2011 by the late James C. Tyree, who bought the company and plunged it into bankruptcy. After his death, his remaining investors found they had little appetite for the news business and sold the company to Ferro.

The sale includes the Naperville Sun, The Aurora Beacon-News, the Elgin Courier-News, the Lake County Sun, the SouthtownStar in the south suburbs, the Post-Tribune in Northwest Indiana and the weekly Pioneer Press titles in the west and north suburbs.

Wrapports will retain the Chicago Sun-Times and its free weekly Chicago Reader, as well as its websites. A spokesman for the Sun-Times told Feder that the company does not comment on rumors.

Last year, Sun-Times Media sold its suburban newspaper buildings and transferred all remaining production staff to the downtown Sun-Times newsroom.