WASHINGTON, Aug 6 – The Washington Post Co. announced Monday it will sell its flagship newspaper to Amazon.com founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos (photo), ending the Graham family’s control of one of the leading news organisations in the United States after four generations.
Bezos will pay US$250 million for the Washington Post and affiliated publications to the Washington Post Co. which owns the newspaper and other businesses, Xinhua news agency reported.
Seattle-based Amazon will have no role in the purchase and Bezos will become the sole owner of the news organisation once the sale is completed which is likely within 60 days.
Washington Post Co. will take up a new name yet to be decided and will continue as a publicly traded company without The Washington Post thereafter.
“The Post could have survived under the company’s ownership and been profitable for the foreseeable future but we wanted to do more than survive. I’m not saying this guarantees success but it gives us a much greater chance of success,” said Donald Graham, the Washington Post Co.’s chief executive.
For much of the past decade, the Washington Post has been unable to escape the financial turmoil that has engulfed newspapers.
The Washington Post Co.’s newspaper division, of which the Washington Post newspaper is the most prominent part, has suffered a 44 percent decline in operating revenue over the past six years.
Print circulation has dwindled, too, falling another 7 percent daily and Sundays during the first half of this year.
The paper’s financial challenges ultimately prompted the company’s board to consider a sale.
According to a report by the paper, Graham hired investment firm Allen & Co. to sell the paper.
Allen’s representatives spoke with half a dozen potential suitors before the board settled on Bezos, 49, a legendary tech innovator who has never run a newspaper.
The deal represents a sudden and stunning turn of events for The Post, whose reporters have broken such stories as the Pentagon Papers, the Watergate scandals and disclosures about the National Security Administration’s surveillance programme in May.
– BERNAMA
