Transcontinental puts newspapers in Quebec and Ontario up for sale

Transcontinental has put its 93 newspapers in Quebec and Ontario up for sale, days after unloading its publications in Atlantic Canada, but its CEO says he doesn’t expect all of them will be bought.

Francois Olivier said he expects to sell more than half of the papers to local entrepreneurs, but likely won’t find buyers for all titles because some of them may be too small or isolated to attract interest.

“We will be much smaller, but we don’t think we will be out,” he said in an interview Tuesday. “It’s a good possibility that we end up being still the biggest in Quebec.”

The media and publishing firm said the sale process involves 91 local and regional weekly publications in Quebec, one in Cornwall, Ont., and the free daily Metro in Montreal, along with their related websites. The company said it expects the process will last several months.

Transcontinental entered the publishing business in the mid-1990s. In 2014, it acquired 40 Quebec weeklies from Quebecor Media.

It has since migrated away from the newspaper business, which has been hit hard by falling advertising and circulation revenues.

Last year, Transcontinental sold off its media assets in Saskatchewan, including 13 newspapers, to Star News Publishing. It announced last week the sale of 27 newspapers in Atlantic Canada – including The News – and the novanewsnow.com website to Salt-Wire Network, the publisher of the Halifax Chronicle Herald.

Olivier said the best strategy for Transcontinental was to decentralize its remaining publishing activities by selling to local owners who would contract with Transcontinental for the printing and distribution of the papers.

Transcontinental said the sale does not include about 15 specialty business, financial and construction publications, including seven purchased from Rogers Publishing, along with education book publishing activities that generate about $100 million in annual revenues.

While dropping advertising revenues have eaten away at the newspaper business, local publications have fared better than their national counterparts, he said, adding that the ones put up for sale Tuesday are all profitable.

Transcontinental plans to keep publishing the newspapers that aren’t sold, he added.