Ex-Chicago politician, labor unions bid for Sun-Times

CHICAGO (AP) — An investor group headed by a former Chicago city council member and labor unions has submitted a bid to buy the Chicago Sun-Times — a move that, if successful, would prevent the paper's biggest rival from purchasing it.

The bid led by former Alderman Edwin Eisendrath and the Chicago Federation of Labor comes a month after the owner of the Sun-Times, Chicago-based-Wrapports LLC announced it had agreed to enter into discussions with Tronc, which owns the rival Chicago Tribune and several other major newspapers, to acquire the paper.

The paper has a history of financial problems that included a fraud conviction in 2007 of Conrad Black, the British-Canadian media baron who owned the paper, on allegations of siphoning millions of dollars from the company to defraud shareholders.

In 2009, Sun-Times Media Group declared bankruptcy, and a group of investors headed by James Tyree, chairman of Mesirow Financial Holdings, bought the company out of bankruptcy for about $26 million later that year.