Journal Register Company Completes Sale of Rhode Island Newspapers
452180
Journal Register Company (NYSE:JRC) today announced that it has  completed the sale of its three daily community newspapers and its  weekly newspaper group in Rhode Island to R.I.S.N. Operations Inc. The  final sales price was approximately $8.3 million in cash, including  working capital.
112884
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island  - The largest U.S. radio station owner has agreed in principle to pay $22 million to victims of a Rhode Island nightclub fire that killed more than 100 people, the latest in a string of settlements that total more than $70 million.
367984
(InfoWorld) - IBM and Ricoh's InfoPrint joint venture officially opened for business Monday. Back in January, IBM announced plans to graduallyÂ offload its enterprise printing systems division to RicohÂ and create InfoPrint Solutions. Ricoh initially acquired 51 percent of InfoPrint and is set to buy up the remaining 49 percent of the business over the next three years. At that point, InfoPrint will become a fully owned subsidiary of the Japanese print and imaging company, and IBM will be completely out of the printer business. In 2006, IBM's printing business generated around $1 billion in revenue. The division includes workgroup laser and multifunction printers, which feature scanning, copying, and faxing capabilities, as well as thermal industrial printers and continuous-form production printers. The vendor also targets SMBsÂ with its InfoPrint Express printers. Ricoh paid IBM $725 million in cash both for the initial 51 percent of the joint venture and as an advance payment for the other 49 percent. The final price tag for the transaction will be determined once the three-year period ends based on the profits and losses IBM and Ricoh sustain in running the joint venture. IBM had been struggling to find ways to reinvigorate its printing business and to counteract a three-year slowdown in the unit's growth. The vendor eventually decided enterprise printers were no longer a core business. IBM previously spun off its lower-end printing business in 1991 with the founding of Lexmark, which became a separate publicly traded company, Lexmark International, in 1995. At the same time, Ricoh was looking to expand its printing business and grow globally, with InfoPrint central to achieving those goals. "It all boils down to a question of funding," said Bob Kilcullen, senior vice president and general manager, InfoPrint solutions management. With the wide range of technologies IBM has in servers, storage, software, and services, the vendor's printing business wasn't front of the line when it came to receiving investment for R&D. "Now we drop right into Ricoh's strategic direction," he added. "We go from side stage to center stage." InfoPrint will look to increase R&D across the board, filling in any gaps in its printer lineup and integrating Ricoh's print engine technology into its range of printers. The hope is that InfoPrint with Ricoh's backing will be better positioned to compete against high-end printer competitorsÂ such asÂ Oce Technologies, Xerox, and Eastman Kodak, as well as rivals in the general office printer space, notably Hewlett-Packard. The only potential area of overlap between IBM's and Ricoh's printing operations is in the low-end InfoPrint Express machines, Kilcullen said. IBM sourced those printers from Lexmark, and InfoPrint plans to continue and expand that relationship. At the same time, Ricoh is an OEM supplier to Lexmark of print engines. "We'd like to form a three-way relationship to extend the relationships we have with Lexmark and with Ricoh to a higher degree," he added. Trying to establish such a relationship is a highly complex matter, but Kilcullen said that discussions with Lexmark are ongoing. InfoPrint currently employs around 1,200 staff worldwide. For the first year of its operations, the company will draw on IBM's printer maintenance experts to continue to provide maintenance services to customers. By June of next year, InfoPrint would look to take on most of those 1,000 experts. In practice, an IBM printer customer should be unaware of any change in maintenance support, with the same person servicing their printers this year and next year. InfoPrint held a large party on Friday afternoon for employees at its Boulder, Colo., headquarters to celebrate Monday's opening for business. Although being spun off from IBM was a traumatic move for some staff, everyone was congratulating each other on the formation of InfoPrint, according to Kilcullen. "I could feel energy in the air," he said. "This move is so positive for our business, and it has been very well received."
197039
A Denver company is acquiring three suburban papers owned by Journal Newspapers Incorporated near the nation&#39;s capital. The Anschutz Company announced the formation yesterday of the Clarity Media Group to handle its newspaper interests.
553523
Tribune Co. said yesterday that it would sell Hoy New York, a free Spanish-language newspaper with a daily circulation of about 56,000, to ImpreMedia, the owner of New York's El Diario La Prensa, the nation's oldest Spanish-language newspaper.
474513
By The Bellingham Herald, Wash.  Mar. 6--A major Bellingham shopping center was recently sold by one limited liability firm to another.
14742
WASHINGTON -- Microsoft Corp. sold its popular Slate online magazine Tuesday to The Washington Post Co., a move that makes Slate&#39;s political commentary and quirky feature articles more broadly available across the Internet.
214077
CanWest Global Communications Corp.,  Canada's biggest media company, has bought complete ownership  of The New Republic, the 93-year-old U.S. political magazine,  it said on Tuesday.
739090
The main union representing employees at The Wall Street Journal and the newspaperâs parent have reached a tentative agreement on a three-year contract.
566149
216 years of publishing history ends on Monday, as The Times switches to a tabloid format. The decision to go fully compact - after trials in London and around the country - was made after sales of the newspaper jumped 4.5 per cent.
757532
By Andrea L. Stape, The Providence Journal, R.I.  Sep. 20--PROVIDENCE -- A sign on the door of Cowan Plastics Inc.
740590
By Rick Romell, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel  Feb. 14--The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel will join a test program in which  dozens of newspapers across the country have been accepting bids for ad space  from companies that advertise on the Google search engine.
434440
Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep Groupâs agreement to acquire the United States educational business of the Harcourt division of Reed Elsevier is the latest in a series of deals that have transformed educational publishing.
482760
Microsoft Corp. sold its Slate online magazine to The Washington Post Co. yesterday, a move that makes Slate's political commentary and quirky feature articles more broadly available on the Internet.
631657
GateHouse Media Inc., which bought the suburban newspaper holdings of Boston Herald publisher Patrick Purcell, will no longer use the Herald's online affiliate to host the web sites of the suburban papers, according to a GateHouse memo.
408364
E.W. Scripps Co. said on Tuesday it will shut down afternoon newspapers The Cincinnati Post and The Kentucky Post by the end of the year at the conclusion of a joint operating agreement.
311824
By Gina Macris, The Providence Journal, R.I.  Mar. 7--PORTSMOUTH -- It's been more than a quarter of a century since  the Weyerhauser Co. brought ashore the last loads of lumber at its 44-acre  terminal on Narragansett Bay and sawed it up for sale to local distributors.