New Company Buys Colorado Business PublicationsBack to News

BOULDER, CO, February 11, 2011 – A newly formed company has acquired business publications serving markets in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming from Ohio Community Media, LLC.

Dirks, Van Essen & Murray, a newspaper brokerage firm in Santa Fe, New Mexico, represented Ohio Community Media in the transaction. The deal represents the last in a series of sales of business publications formerly owned by Brown Publishing Co. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The publications in the latest transaction include the Boulder County Business Report, based in Boulder; the Northern Colorado Business Report, based in Fort Collins; and the Wyoming Business Report, based in Cheyenne and Casper. Also included are various industry directories, magazines, websites and events.

The acquiring company, BizWest Media, LLC, through its ownership of Northern Colorado Business Report Inc., also controls DataJoe LLC, a Lakewood, Colorado-based company that provides research tools for business journals and trade publications internationally. Dan Feiveson will continue as a partner in DataJoe. BizWest will be co-headquartered in Boulder and Fort Collins.

Ohio Community Media took ownership of these and other publishing assets through a court-ordered Section 363 bankruptcy sale of the Brown Publishing’s assets in the fall of 2010 and announced its intention to divest the business and other publications. OCM continues to own and operate a large portfolio of daily and weekly newspapers in western Ohio.

BizWest Media is led by Chris Wood and Jeff Nuttall, who managed the Colorado and Wyoming business publications and were part-owners of one of the entities that owned the publications. Brown had acquired the Colorado-based operation in 2008.

“This is a milestone for our publications,” said Wood, who will continue as publisher of the Boulder County Business Report. Nuttall will continue to serve as publisher of the Northern Colorado Business Report.

The Boulder County Business Report was founded in 1982. Northern Colorado followed in 1995, and Wyoming was launched in 2000.

Since assuming ownership of the Brown assets, OCM has sold the Des Moines Business Record in Iowa; Utah Business magazine in Salt Lake City; the Collin County Business Press and the Fort Worth Business Press in Texas; the Austin Relocation Guide in Texas; the Business Ledger in Naperville, Illinois; and the Charleston Regional Business Journal, GSA Business and the Columbia Regional Business Report in South Carolina.

If you have further questions contact Dirks, Van Essen & Murray at 505-820-2700, or visit our website at www.dirksvanessen.com.