The &lt;Hearst Corp> is buying the HoustonChronicle 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.
 REUTER
