The deal, which signals the exit of the Sun-Times from the printing and distribution business, also calls for the Chicago Tribune Media Group (CTMG) to also print seven suburban newspapers owned by the Sun-Times.

"The Sun-Times has been one of our most valued customers since 2007, when we struck our first distribution agreement with them," Becky Brubaker, CTMG senior VP, manufacturing and distribution, said in a statement. "In a rapidly changing, highly competitive media marketplace, these types of agreements benefit companies as well as readers and advertisers across the metropolitan region."

The Sun-Times and its suburban sister papers will be printed at CTMG's state-of-the art Freedom Center printing facility, located near the Chicago River. The deal, which will save the Sun-Times an estimated US$10m annually,  is a straight contract and not a Joint Operating Agreement, which US papers tried-with limited success-in markets such as Seattle, Detroit and Denver as a way to preserve the economic viability of two-newspaper cities.

As many as 400 people will lose their jobs as the Sun-Times closes its south Chicago printing facility. In addition to the Sun-Times, the Tribune will print and distribute the Aurora Beacon-News, the Elgin Courier-News, the Joliet Herald-News, the Lake County News-Sun, the Merrillville Post-Tribune, the SouthtownStar and the Naperville Sun.

A CTMG spokesperson told PrintWeek, "We need to make some capital investments to provide the capacity, flexibility and redundancy to handle the incremental volumes from this agreement. These investments will not disrupt any current operations.  We expect to hire additional personnel at Freedom Center, and we are currently developing our recruitment plans."