Former Osprey chief exec Michael Sifton now to run Sun Media Corporation

With the absorption of Osprey Media, its newspaper and magazines, into the maw of Quebecor Media Inc., Michael Sifton was at loose ends, we suppose. Not any more; he has been named President and Chief Executive Officer of Quebecor's Sun Media Corporation. As such, he will be running Canada's largest newspaper publishing company.

With the inclusion of the 20 Osprey dailies and 38 community papers, Quebecor and its subsidiary Sun Media has a total average daily circulation of 1.3 million and 3.4 million in circulation of 171 community papers across the country.

Sifton built up Osprey Media by acquisition starting about 7 years ago and immediately turned it into an income trust, just in time to have such trusts go south when the federal finance minister announced his intention to tax them. In fact, the Osprey Media Income Trust was in trouble before that because of competitive pressures (largely from Torstar) simply couldn't spin off enough cash to pay the distributions that the unitholders expected (and had been promised).

Sifton is the great-grandson of the legendary newspaperman Sir Clifford Sifton, who owned the Winnipeg Free Press. Mr. Sifton had been publisher of The Star Phoenix in Saskatoon and the President of the Armadale Communications Group prior to its sale to Hollinger Inc. in February of 1996. Soon thereafter he struck out on his own and assembled and managed the Osprey Media properties.

(Sifton is not remembered fondly in the west both because he sold his family's independent holdings (the Star Phoenix and the Regina Leader-Post) to Black, but also because, two days after the sale, 170 employees at the two papers were fired. The depleted ranks at Sun Media will be watching their backs.)

Mr. Sifton is a former Chairman and a current board member of The Canadian Press (he was instrumental in reorganizing the cooperative), a past director, treasurer and vice-chair of The Canadian Newspaper Association and a former director of NADbank.