Current Newspapers Files for Bankruptcy
By • January 7, 2018 0 747
The Current Newspapers, Inc., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Jan. 3.
Headquartered at 5185 MacArthur Blvd. NW, the newspaper company celebrated its 50th anniversary in November. It began in 1967 as the Potomac Current but changed its name to the Northwest Current — later adding editions for Chevy Chase, Dupont Circle, Foggy Bottom and Georgetown. It plans to restructure its business and will operate as normal with the first newspaper of 2018 expected Jan. 10. The company’s lawyer is Philip McNutt of Hughes & Bentzen, PLLC, on Connecticut Avenue.
According to records at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Columbia, the Current Newspapers has more than $1.2 million in liabilities and less than $50,000 in assets. The biggest debtor claims include $180,000 by Gannett Company printers and $105,000 by Bartash Printing, Inc., of Philadelphia. (The deadline for filing claims is May 18; claims by the government, July 2.)
The Current’s editor and publisher, Davis Kennedy, who bought the company in 1994, wrote in a letter to the court: “Due to an interruption in cash flow resulting from outside printing costs, the Company needs to reorganize its business operations and finances in order to continue to serve its constituents with the same quality they have come to expect over the past number of years.”
