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Local investors buy Santa Rosa Press Democrat

Ten months after Florida-based Halifax Media Group bought the Santa Rosa Press Democrat from the New York Times Co., it now plans to sell the paper to a group of local investors.

According to a report in the Press Democrat, the main buyers include Darius Anderson, a Sonoma developer and Sacramento lobbyist, and Doug Bosco, a former congressman who remains active in Democratic Party politics.

Anderson earlier this year led a different six-person partnership that bought the Sonoma Index-Tribune newspaper, which publishes twice a week.
The sale of the Press Democrat will also include the weekly Petaluma Argus-Courier and the North Bay Business Journal.

Another investor is Steven Falk, former president and publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle and currently head of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce.

The fourth principal buyer is Bill Hooper, president of Anderson’s development firm, Kenwood Investments, and a former executive with Clear Channel Outdoor, the billboard advertising company.

Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Falk, who is chief executive of the investor group known as Sonoma Media, said the deal could close as early as next week.

Halifax CEO Michael Redding didn’t return a call to a Press Democrat reporter who wrote the report about the sale, but said in a statement that because “90 percent of our company is based in the Southeast, it makes geographic sense for Sonoma Media to own the business.”

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