Sources say Hearst to Buy Press Democrat and Index Tribune

By David Bolling

While official confirmation is still not forthcoming, three sources inside the Press Democrat’s mid-level management have confirmed the Santa Rosa daily newspaper is close to a negotiated sale to the Hearst Corporation. The sources, who chose to remain anonymous, work inside the Press-Democrat corporate structure; they have confirmed to the Sonoma Valley Sun that sale negotiations have been underway for months and that a final agreement is imminent. The purchase price has been estimated at “low eight figures” meaning $10 million or more.

The Press Democrat is owned by Sonoma Media Investments (SMI), headed by managing general partner Darius Anderson, a prominent presence in investment and political circles in Sonoma, California at large, and beyond. SMI also owns the Sonoma Index-Tribune, the Petaluma Argus-Courier, the North Bay Business Journal, the Sonoma County Gazette, La Prensa Sonoma and Sonoma Magazine. All these publications would be included in the sale, although whether all would remain in print was unknown.

SMI bought the Press Democrat from Halifax Media Corp in 2011 for a reported $15 million in cash and debt restructuring. Halifax had purchased the Press Democrat a year earlier from the New York Times as part of a $143 million buy-out of 16 regional papers owned by the Times.,The Times had paid $125 million in 1985 for the Press Democrat alone. The Press-Democrat had been the only Times-owned paper west of the Rocky Mountains, and Halifax Media is centered in the Southeast, principally in Florida, so sale of the Press Democrat had been widely expected at the time.

Sonoma Media Investments is headed by Anderson, with investment partners including Sandy Weil, Bill Jasper, Les Vadasz, Jean Schulz, Doug Bosco and Norma Person. In 2019 the company publicly announced it had paid off its investors and was debt-free. Hearst Corporation is a New-York-based conglomerate with some 25 U.S. magazine titles (and about 200 worldwide), 24 daily newspapers and 52 weeklies. The company also owns 28 regional TV stations, two radio stations, 20 percent of ESPN, and CosmoTV.

The company is privately owned by members of the Hearst family, with estimated annual revenues of about $11 billion.

Online comments from Hearst employees suggest its private ownership makes employee security somewhat more stable since quarterly sales figures don’t send periodic waves through employee ranks as happens in publicly-traded companies. Most of the Hearst company’s newspapers are in medium-to-small markets, which may also be more stable.