Acquisitions

A century of Kavanagh newspaper ownership has come to an end. Brian and Leanne Kavanagh have sold the Shelby Promoter, as well as the Cut Bank Pioneer Press, Browning Glacier Reporter and The Valierian to Jesse Mullen and Lloyd Mullen of Ponderosa Publications, LLC. Ponderosa Publications is affiliated with Mullen Newspaper Company based in Deer Lodge.

Mid-atlantic Media, LLC has expanded its media holdings with the acquisition of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent. The regional Jewish publication covering Philadelphia and its Pennsylvania suburbs and South Jersey was sold by the Jewish Publishing Group, a subsidiary of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.

Cherryroad Media Inc. has purchased nine newspapers from Rust Communications, Inc. Three of the papers are in Missouri: Marshall Democratnews, Monett Times and Cassville Democrat. The Arkansas papers are: South Missourian News in Thayer, Carroll County News in Berryville, Lovely County Citizen in Eureka Springs, The News in Salem, Villager Journal in Cherokee Village and Clay County Times-democrat in Piggott.

Local TV giant TEGNA has been sold to a pair of private equity firms in a multibillion-dollar deal. Standard General and Apollo Global Management teamed up for the deal, under which the company will become the “nation’s largest minority-owned, woman-led broadcast group,” the deal partners said.

After two generations of Peck-family ownership, the Riverton Ranger in Wyoming has changed hands twice in roughly a month. The Peck family’s two-generation run with The Ranger ended in January. That’s when the paper announced the Pecks were selling The Ranger, Lander Journal and Wind River News to local financial adviser Grace Andrus, who moved to Riverton in 2017. In early February, less than a month after the announcement of the first sale, the paper again changed hands, with Andrus transferring her stake in the three publications to Edwards Group Holdings, a company that instituted an employee-stock-ownership plan in August.