Perelman joins local group bidding for Philly papers

The newest investor in a local group seeking to win The Inquirer at auction is tough in business and generous in charity - and Philadelphia through and through.

Raymond G. Perelman, 92, whose name adorns buildings on city institutions ranging from the Art Museum to the Kimmel Center, confirmed his involvement on Monday.

Perelman's son, the wealthy financier Ronald O. Perelman, owner of Revlon cosmetics and the former husband of movie star Ellen Barkin, also is investing.

"Why don't you wait and see if we get it?" the elder Perelman said on Monday, picking up the phone at his Rittenhouse Square penthouse and at first disinclined to answer questions. "I'm a little superstitious. I don't want to get too much publicity and not have it happen."

Perelman said he decided to invest in the effort to buy The Inquirer and its sister companies because, "I think it's a sleeping giant. I love to read the paper. It's a good investment, and I think I would enjoy being part of it."

He predicted that the fortunes of the paper, going on auction Tuesday along with the Philadelphia Daily News and the Philly.com website, would rise as the national economy strengthened.

"I'm happy to be involved," he said. "It's a good group of people. David Haas is a super guy, a super guy. I'm on the board of the museum with him."

Philanthropist David Haas, an heir to the Rohm and Haas fortune, is among a local investor group that includes the Carpenters Union pension fund, and William A. Graham, chief executive officer of insurance broker The Graham Co.

Bruce Toll, vice chairman of giant homebuilder Toll Bros. Inc., is also said to be part of the group, but at a lower stake than previously stated.

Haas, chairman of the William Penn Foundation, has taken a keen interest not only in traditional media, but in new and emerging non-profit models of ownership and funding.

Efforts to reach him yesterday were unsuccessful.

Robert J. Rosenthal, a former editor of the Inquirer who now runs the Center for Investigative Reporting in Berkeley, Ca., said Haas' interest in media runs deep.

"If this happens, and he becomes involved in the Inquirer, it'll be a really positive step for the Inquirer and the whole region," Rosenthal said. "He's very much forward-looking, but also understands the traditional values of really high-quality journalism."

Rosenthal said he and Haas have talked about new journalistic models, specifically a CIR project called California Watch, which focuses on the state. He found Haas "very much committed to the belief that the press plays a central role in democracy, that it has a true, historic value in this country."

Some of the local investors now seeking to buy the newspaper are the same people who invested before - and lost millions of dollars when the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year.

Graham, the Philadelphia-based regional insurance broker, agreed to be part of the new group on Thursday, at the request of Brian Tierney, chief executive officer of Philadelphia Newspapers L.L.C., which owns The Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com.

Graham, like Toll, was among the investors who bought The Inquirer in 2006. Graham estimated his investment at $31 million - all of which has been lost.

Efforts to reach him were unsuccessful on Monday.

An executive who knows Graham described him as "a Philadelphia chauvinist, someone who loves his hometown and is committed to his hometown. He loves the newspaper."

Graham is graduate of Bucknell University, a former Bison wrestler whose largesse helped the school renovate its athletic center and revitalize its wrestling program.

On Monday, Tierney said the Perelmans would replace California billionaire Ron Burkle and his Yucaipa Cos. in the bid. Burkle had been prepated to get involved, but was happy to step aside for a local investor, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.

The senior Perelman would not discuss the size of his potential investment in the newspaper company. His role in other Philadelphia institutions has been substantial.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art includes the Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building. The museum board of trustees chose the name after the couple pledged $15 million toward its purchase in 1999.

There is also the Kimmel Center's Perelman Theater, the University of Pennsylvania's Raymond and Ruth Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, and the Perelman Jewish Day School. Between 1999 and 2007, Perelman and has wife publicly pledged more than $45 million in charitable gifts.

In a 2007 profile in the Inquirer, Perelman estimated he has bought and sold 30 to 50 companies in his lifetime.

"All successful people are risk-takers," he said then. "And I always wanted to be successful."

The family didn't start out rich. The senior Perelman's parents immigrated from Lithuania as teenagers, poor and unable to read or write English. He was raised as one of three siblings in the Olney and Feltonville neighborhoods.

He made his first million buying and then liquidating Esslinger Premium Brewery at 10th and Callowhill. Today Perelman's net worth is estimated in multiples of millions, though his businesses are private, their total value not publicly reported.

On Monday he said he was looking forward to a new opportunity in the newspaper business, but not convinced the local owners would win at auction.

"Who knows what they're going to do?" he said. "We're going to know tomorrow."