No one else stepped forward with a bid for the bankrupt Chicago Sun-Times before a Monday evening deadline, leaving just one offer for the storied newspaper that's rapidly running out of the cash it needs to stay in business.

The standing offer for the parent company, the Sun-Times Media Group Inc., is from hometown investor Jim Tyree, who has insisted that workers agree to concessions before he'll seal the deal that could be the paper's last chance of survival.

Tyree has said he will walk away if all of the more than dozen unions at the newspaper do not accept concessions, including locking in 15 percent pay cuts that were meant to be temporary.

In a brief memo Monday evening, Sun-Times Media Group Chairman Jeremy Halbreich informed company employees that no other potential buyers came forward. He said he hopes a Delaware bankruptcy court can now approve a sale to Tyree on Thursday.

In his memo, Halbreich struck an upbeat note, saying he continued "to be confident that all of the conditions to the completion of that transaction, including the approval of all of the required union contract amendments, will be in hand before we appear before the Court."

As of Monday, five of the Sun-Times unions had said they wouldn't agree to the concessions, nine had agree and two hadn't yet voted, according to Sun-Times spokeswoman Tammy Chase.

A message left Monday evening for Tom Thibeault, executive director of the Chicago Newspaper Guild, which represents editorial workers at the Sun-Times newspapers, was not immediately returned.

Tyree, 51, grew up on Chicago's South Side and now heads Mesirow Financial, a financial services firm. He leads a group that has offered to pay $5 million for assets of the Sun-Times Media Group, which also runs more than 50 suburban publications. The investors also would assume about $22 million in liabilities.

A judge said last month that the parties should have until December to agree, but media group executives have said they don't have the cash to hold out until then. They've said the company could shut down for good, jeopardizing more than 1,800 jobs.

If the Sun-Times goes under, that would leave this city of 3 million with one major daily, the Chicago Tribune, whose parent company is also operating under bankruptcy protection.

Sun-Times Media filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March, citing $479 million in assets and $801 million in debt.

The Sun-Times has shed more than 400 jobs since late last year through layoffs and attrition.

Tyree has said that if he does take over the Sun-Times, he doesn't foresee additional job cuts. He said money would be spent on improving content, but he has declined to provide details.