Magazine publisher buys S. F. Examiner

door in some neighborhoods.

Reilly, a political consultant and real estate investor, has a large property portfolio that includes the Merchants Exchange Building and Merchants Exchange Club, three office buildings on Pine Street, the Little Fox Building in Jackson Square, the Julia Morgan Ballroom and Credo Restaurant.

Reilly said he’s well aware of the huge challenges that newspapers face as advertising and readers have migrated online.

He hopes to create advertising synergies between the Examiner and his two luxury magazines. The Nob Hill Gazette, focused on San Francisco, has a circulation of 70,000. Gentry magazine, which he bought four months ago, has a circulation of 30,000 on the Peninsula.

The SF Weekly was included in the sale “like a stocking stuffer,” Reilly said. He recently turned down a chance to buy the East Bay Express because “the altweekly space is not where I wanted to focus my energy,” but he said the SF Weekly has potential and a talented, albeit small, staff.

Reilly, a onetime candidate for San Francisco mayor, has had a long and sometimes contentious history with the Examiner.

In 1993, Reilly alleged that the Examiner’s executive editor, Phil Bronstein, shoved him and broke his ankle while he was objecting to its coverage of him. He sued in a case that was settled out of court.

In 2000, Hearst said it would pay $ 660 million for the larger San Francisco Chronicle, and merge the Examiner with it. Reilly sued to block the deal on the grounds that it threatened competition, while also trying to buy the Examiner. Ultimately, Hearst sold the Examiner to the Fang family, publisher of some local newspapers, for a nominal sum while giving it $ 66 million over three years to run it.