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Alta Newspaper Group
Alta Newspaper Group Limited Partnership is a Vancouver-based publisher of newspapers in Western Canada and Quebec. It owns three small daily newspapers and more than a dozen weeklies.
Alta, also known as Alberta Newspaper Group and Southern Alberta Newspapers, is one of two Canadian newspaper companies run and partially owned by David Radler, a former business partner of Conrad Black in Hollinger Inc. Both Alta and Continental Newspapers are descendants of Horizon Operations (Canada) Ltd., a company Radler founded at the end of the 1990s.
Most of the newspapers that currently make up Alta and Continental were purchased from The Thomson Corporation between 1999 and 2001 by Horizon, a family of companies owned by David Radler and Conrad Black, independently from Radler's and Black's roles as COO and CEO, respectively, of Hollinger Inc. During the 2000s, both men were convicted of defrauding Hollinger and served time in prison; Black sold his interest in Horizon in 2006; and Radler organized his Canadian holdings into two companies, including a limited partnership for his two Alberta dailies and associated weeklies.
The chain, originally called Southern Alberta Newspapers and renamed Alta Group Newspapers, consisted of the former Thomson dailies Lethbridge Herald and Medicine Hat News, and a group of weeklies covering suburban and rural communities in the Lethbridge-Medicine Hat area. The oldest of the weeklies was The Taber Times, which dated to 1907 and had built the chain in the 1970s before being bought out by Hollinger and then Thomson.
In the mid-2000s, Alta purchased three weeklies in southwestern Saskatchewan, and in 2006 it acquired The Record of Sherbrooke, Quebec, from Glacier Media, which took an ownership interest in Alta. Radler noted that The Record was a nostalgic purchase: it was the first newspaper that he and Black owned, back in 1969.
The company has not made any major acquisitions since 2006, although it has bought out biweekly newspapers that competed with its dailies in Lethbridge and Sherbrooke.
As a private company, Alta Newspaper Group is not required to publish an annual report, and Radler has been "tight-lipped" about its ownership structure, telling reporters that he is "a shareholder" in the company but declining to specify how much he owns. Alta was formed, however, out of a subsidiary of Horizon Publications Inc., a company acknowledged to have been owned and operated primarily by Radler.
In 2006, as part of the deal that added The Record to Alta's holdings, Vancouver-based publisher Glacier Media took a 50% share in Alta. It later increased its ownership share to 59%. Glacier is also part-owner of two other newspaper companies connected with Radler, Continental Newspapers and RISN Operations. Sam Grippo, Glacier's chairman of the board, was a group publisher at Hollinger during Radler's time as chief operating officer.
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Alta Newspaper Group
Alta Newspaper Group Limited Partnership is a Vancouver-based publisher of newspapers in Western Canada and Quebec. It owns three small daily newspapers and more than a dozen weeklies.
Alta, also known as Alberta Newspaper Group and Southern Alberta Newspapers, is one of two Canadian newspaper companies run and partially owned by David Radler, a former business partner of Conrad Black in Hollinger Inc. Both Alta and Continental Newspapers are descendants of Horizon Operations (Canada) Ltd., a company Radler founded at the end of the 1990s.
Most of the newspapers that currently make up Alta and Continental were purchased from The Thomson Corporation between 1999 and 2001 by Horizon, a family of companies owned by David Radler and Conrad Black, independently from Radler's and Black's roles as COO and CEO, respectively, of Hollinger Inc. During the 2000s, both men were convicted of defrauding Hollinger and served time in prison; Black sold his interest in Horizon in 2006; and Radler organized his Canadian holdings into two companies, including a limited partnership for his two Alberta dailies and associated weeklies.
The chain, originally called Southern Alberta Newspapers and renamed Alta Group Newspapers, consisted of the former Thomson dailies Lethbridge Herald and Medicine Hat News, and a group of weeklies covering suburban and rural communities in the Lethbridge-Medicine Hat area. The oldest of the weeklies was The Taber Times, which dated to 1907 and had built the chain in the 1970s before being bought out by Hollinger and then Thomson.
In the mid-2000s, Alta purchased three weeklies in southwestern Saskatchewan, and in 2006 it acquired The Record of Sherbrooke, Quebec, from Glacier Media, which took an ownership interest in Alta. Radler noted that The Record was a nostalgic purchase: it was the first newspaper that he and Black owned, back in 1969.
The company has not made any major acquisitions since 2006, although it has bought out biweekly newspapers that competed with its dailies in Lethbridge and Sherbrooke.
As a private company, Alta Newspaper Group is not required to publish an annual report, and Radler has been "tight-lipped" about its ownership structure, telling reporters that he is "a shareholder" in the company but declining to specify how much he owns. Alta was formed, however, out of a subsidiary of Horizon Publications Inc., a company acknowledged to have been owned and operated primarily by Radler.
In 2006, as part of the deal that added The Record to Alta's holdings, Vancouver-based publisher Glacier Media took a 50% share in Alta. It later increased its ownership share to 59%. Glacier is also part-owner of two other newspaper companies connected with Radler, Continental Newspapers and RISN Operations. Sam Grippo, Glacier's chairman of the board, was a group publisher at Hollinger during Radler's time as chief operating officer.