New Media completes purchase of ProJo from Belo

A.H. BELO HAS COMPLETED the sale of The Providence Journal to New Media Investment, although the 75 Fountain St. headquarters of the newspaper is still for sale or lease. New Media has signed a one-year lease to use the offices there as well as the associated parking lot in downtown Providence.  / PBN FILE PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD
A.H. BELO HAS COMPLETED the sale of The Providence Journal to New Media Investment, although the 75 Fountain St. headquarters of the newspaper is still for sale or lease. New Media has signed a one-year lease to use the offices there as well as the associated parking lot in downtown Providence. / PBN FILE PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD

PROVIDENCE – A.H. Belo Corp. has completed the sale of The Providence Journal to Gatehouse Media, a subsidiary of New York-based New Media Investment Group Inc., according to a news release issued by Dallas-based Belo. The close of the deal is within the timetable of the 2014 third quarter set when the two companies announced the sale in July.
New Media agreed to purchase for $46 million “substantially all of the assets which comprise the newspaper operations” of the Journal, according to the news release. Those assets include the Providence production facility of the paper and related land, but do not include the 75 Fountain St. headquarters, downtown parking lots or the former Rhode Island Monthly/Sunday edition inserting facility. New Media has signed a one-year lease to occupy the headquarters and use the parking lots.
The agreement said that the final purchase price would be subject to “usual closing costs,” but the details of those costs were not released Wednesday. Belo reiterated its continuing sponsorship of the defined-benefit pension plan for those Journal employees who were eligible to have one.
New Media began the process of trimming staff Tuesday, with Rhode Island Public Radio reporting that 22 members of the Providence Newspaper Guild had been laid off, some with work for another five months, some let go immediately, including long-time Journal columnist Bob Kerr.
It was not clear if more layoffs are scheduled, since neither Journal nor New Media management returned calls or emails for comment. In addition, Guild officials did not respond to requests for comment.

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