In a conference call with reporters, Rendell said the group was motivated to take over the financially struggling Philadelphia Media Network Inc. more out of a sense of civic duty than a desire to earn a profit.
Singh, whose company supplies equipment and systems for the power industry, said Rendell had organized the group in recent weeks by telephone.
"The Philadelphia Inquirer is a great newspaper, and I've been reading it since 1968," Singh said. "It should be saved. It should prosper."
Philadelphia Media Network (PMN) is owned by a consortium of short-term investors - hedge funds and investment banks - that brought the newspapers out of bankruptcy in 2010.
Sources close to the process said the owners were in the early stages of gauging interest from prospective buyers and that an immediate sale was not certain. A spokesman for the company declined to comment.
"I think this is going to be an ongoing process," Rendell said. "There is no guarantee the newspaper is going to be sold. This is an ongoing expression of interest."
Rendell's group is one of several said to be interested in bidding.
Raymond Perelman, 94, the Philadelphia businessman and philanthropist who wanted to buy the newspapers and website two years ago, told the Associated Press on Friday that he might bid "at the right price and the right situation."
The bidders have signed nondisclosure agreements with the company, and Rendell on Friday expressed irritation that rumors of his involvement had leaked out.
The New York Post reported Friday that the company's owners had hired Evercore Partners, a New York investment-banking firm, to find a buyer after two of the hedge funds expressed an interest in selling.
Representatives of Evercore and the hedge funds, Alden Global Capital and Angelo, Gordon & Co., declined to comment.
