However, PMN management has stated that it "is not in discussions" with Blatstein or his Philly Hometown Media L.L.C.
PMN's current owners have retained Evercore Partners Inc., a New York investment-banking firm, to conduct a sale of the company.
In a statement released Friday, Blatstein said his group remains "perplexed as to why the out-of-town hedge funds which own the assets of PMN seem uninterested in hearing our ideas." In an interview, Blatstein said that his group remains excluded from the sale process.
In the statement, Blatstein outlined an "intended plan of action" should PMN's ownership group decline to enter into discussions with Philly Hometown Media. Those plans could include a daily newspaper as well as some type of digital paper, he said.
A spokesman for PMN said the company had no comment on the Blatstein group's statement.
John Morton, a newspaper-industry analyst, said launching a new digital and print paper in an urban area like Philadelphia would be a "very daunting thing."
Newspapers are expensive to operate. Morton said that to cover a region like Philadelphia's would require at least 25 reporters and 10 to 15 editors. Assume $60,000 to $80,000 annual salaries for each, and "you're talking fairly big money," he said. "Week after week."
Philly Hometown Media says it has plenty of money.
"Our preliminary modeling indicates that this venture would be successful," the statement says. "Prior attempts at competition have been frustrated by a lack of committed long-term capital. Philly Hometown Media suffers from no such disability."
Besides Blatstein, the group's investors include beverage-industry giant Harold Honickman; Gerard H. Sweeney, president and chief executive officer of Brandywine Realty Trust; William A. Harvey, managing partner of Klehr Harrison Harvey Branzburg L.L.P., and class-action securities lawyer Andrew L. Barroway.
