ap Inc. said Wednesday it will purchase the remaining 20 percent interest in The Denver Post Corp. that it doesn’t already own.
Denver-based MediaNews has exercised an option to buy the stake from Media General Inc. for $45.85 million, according to a filing Wednesday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The purchase, set to be completed by June 10, will give Media News chief executive Dean Singleton full control of The Post.
“The Denver Post is the flagship newspaper of MediaNews. It is where we live, and we wanted to own all of it,” Singleton said.
MediaNews had until June 30 to buy out Media General’s stake. The two sides couldn’t agree on a price and brought in a third party to determine a value.
Media General obtained a 40 percent stake in The Denver Post when MediaNews purchased the paper in 1987. Media News bought out half that stake in 1999.
MediaNews and E.W. Scripps Co., owner of the Rocky Mountain News, share profits through a joint operating agreement for the two Denver newspapers.
The JOA contributed $28.5 million to each party for the nine months ended March 31. That’s before accounting for the costs of running the newsrooms of the two papers.
Privately owned ap operates 40 daily newspapers in nine states.
Media General, based in Richmond, Va., publishes The Tampa Tribune, the Richmond Times- Dispatch and the Winston-Salem Journal, and owns 26 network-affiliated TV stations.
Staff writer Aldo Svaldi can be reached at 303-820-1410 or asvaldi@denverpost.com.
