Paul Godfrey’s last newspaper purchase — he led a $411 million management buyout of Sun Media Corp. in 1996 — was a great financial success for him and his managers, as they flipped it in 1998 to Quebecor for almost $1 billion. A losing bidder for the Sun assets then was Torstar Corp., which again this week failed in an attempt to go national by buying Canwest LP. Godfrey, 71-year-old president of Canwest’s National Post, has now led a group of unsecured creditors in scooping up 11 major dailies and 35 community papers from Montreal to Victoria for $1.1 billion. It’s apparently great news for Canwest employees, as the company promised continuing employment, pensions and benefits to all staff. It’s also good news for Canwest’s neglected digitial properties, including the flagship Canada.com and its verticals Working, Driving and Househunting, as Godfrey committed to growing digital revenues from 8 per cent to 25 percent. All this bonhomie is in contrast to the terse official comment from Torstar’s CFO, David Holland: “…the successful price was well beyond what we are prepared to pay.” There can be few regrets at Torstar that it didn’t pay $1 billion for the Sun papers 12 years ago, given the erosion in those tabloids’ income; check back in a few years to see whether Torstar is delighted by the deal it didn’t make this time. Apparently the match-maker who linked Godfrey up with the creditors was Journal Register CEO John Paton, who was a member of Godfrey’s management team at Sun Media…and will be keynote speaker at this week’s Canadian Newspaper Association conference in Toronto. Should make for some interesting conversations.