Thursday could become a pivotal day in the life-and-death struggle of the Chicago Sun-Times and more than 50 suburban newspapers owned by Sun-Times Media Group.

A 5 p.m. Monday deadline came and went with no bidders surfacing to compete against a proposal by Chicago financier James Tyree to purchase the bankrupt company, So, in a letter to employees, CEO Jeremy Halbreich said the company will ask the federal bankruptcy court to approve the sale of its assets to Tyree on Thursday.

Tyree offered to buy the company - whose suburban properties include the Aurora Beacon News, the Elgin Courier-News, the Joliet Herald News, the Naperville News, the Waukegan News-Sun, and numerous weekly community papers throughout the suburbs - for a sum of $5 million in cash plus the assumption of about $22 million in liabilities. However, he has insisted that the offer depends on substantial pay and benefits concessions from the company's unions.

So far, bargaining unit members at the Sun-Times and various other STMG properties have rejected those demands, which include a 15 percent permanent salary rollback, freezing pension funds and dramatically changing rules on severance and seniority.

Labor discussions are reportedly scheduled throughout the week, with a Wednesday night session set for an update on talks and a possible vote on new contract language.

Halbreich says in his memo he remains "confident that all of the conditions to the

completion of (the sale), including the approval of all of the required union contract amendments, will be in hand before we appear before the Court."

Tyree originally placed a Sept. 29 deadline for union acceptance of his conditions, but the bankruptcy judge ruled last week that that deadline could not be imposed.

Dipping into cash reserves that once reached around $20 million, the Sun-Times is said to be spending about a half-million dollars a week more than it takes in, leading observers to question how long the company can survive if the deal with Tyree is not completed soon.