HEARST BUYS HOUSTON CHRONICLE FOR 400 MLN DLRS

  The &lt;Hearst Corp> is buying the Houston
  Chronicle from Houston Endowment Inc for 400 mln dlrs.
      The announcement was made jointly by Frank Bennack Jr,
  president and chief executive officer of Hearst, and Richard
  Johnson, president of the Chronicle.
      The Houston Endowment is selling the paper to comply with
  federal tax laws requiring charitable institutions to divest
  themselves of profit-making subsidiaries by 1989.
      The Chronicle has a daily circulation of over 425,000 and
  is in competition with the Houston Post, owned by the &lt;Toronto
  Sun Publishing Corp>, with a circulation of about 316,000.
      The acquisition gives Hearst its biggest newspaper holding
  in Texas, where the California-based publisher already owns
  papers in San Antonio, Beaumont and Laredo.
      The chain also owns, among others, the flagship San
  Francisco Examiner, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and the
  Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
  

