We announced this news today at the Business Report:
BOULDER - The Boulder County Business Report has reached an agreement to be purchased by Brown Publishing Co., a family-owned publishing company based in Ohio that owns daily, weekly and business publications.
Jerry W. Lewis and Jeff Schott, publishers of the Business Report, announced the sale on Friday with Roy Brown, president and chief executive of Brown Publishing. Terms were not disclosed.
Brown Publishing is purchasing Boulder Business Information Inc., the company formed in 1989 by Lewis, Schott and Jirka Rysavy. The sale includes all of the Business Report's print, event and online publications, as well as BBI's majority ownership of the Northern Colorado Business Report in Fort Collins, the Wyoming Business Report in Cheyenne, Wyo., and DataJoe LLC, a research and online data e-commerce company based in Lakewood.
Chris Wood, co-publisher of the Northern Colorado Business Report, has been named the new publisher of the Boulder County Business Report, and Jeff Nuttall, co-publisher at NCBR, now will become publisher there. Phil Noble will continue as publisher of WBR.
"We are thankful to Jerry and Jeff to have the opportunity to succeed to their ownership of the Boulder County Business Report," Brown said. "We also look forward to teaming with Jeff in Fort Collins, Chris in Boulder, and Phil in Wyoming to serve all of the information needs of each of those growing business communities.
"Finally, we share Jeff and Jerry's enthusiasm for DataJoe and its market-leading business data management technology. We rely on it at our other business publications. Frankly, its functionality and applicability to a wide range of publications is exceptional, and should be a 'lightning-in-a-bottle' opportunity to create digital revenue streams for its users and us going forward."
Wood graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1988, with a bachelor of science degree in journalism. He worked as reporter and assistant editor of the Boulder County Business Report from 1989 to 1990.
"It's exciting to return to the Boulder market," Wood said. "The Boulder County Business Report has built a reputation as one of the nation's leading business newspapers. I look forward to working with Brown Publishing and our talented Boulder staff as we build on the solid base crafted by Jerry and Jeff over the years."
"Brown Publishing brings our company the expertise and experience of a third-generation newspaper company, and also the enthusiasm of a company that recently has purchased several other excellent business newspapers," Lewis said. "Throughout our talks, we became convinced that Roy Brown's company was our best choice to continue the growth of our Front Range newspapers."
In the past six months, Brown Publishing has purchased the Des Moines Business Record in Iowa, the Charleston Regional Business Journal in South Carolina and the Fort Worth Business Press in Texas.
In the past year, Brown Publishing has been expanding its publishing presence in Ohio, as well as moving into other states. It also acquired Dan's Paper and other affiliated publications serving the exclusive Hamptons in New York.
Schott, a graduate of the University of Colorado, first started working at the Business Report in 1984 as a writer before becoming its advertising sales director, publisher and a partner in 1989.
Lewis has been editor and publisher of the Business Report for 18 years and a Colorado journalist for more than 30 years, first working for the Boulder Daily Camera and then a 10-year career at The Denver Post.
Both will be leaving the Business Report after a short period of helping in the new management team transition.
"Our experience of serving the entrepreneurial businesses of the Boulder Valley both with our staff's reporting, advertising sales and business events such as our IQ Innovation Awards has been incredibly rewarding for Jeff and me," Lewis said. "We truly want to thank each and every business associate we've made over the past two decades.
"We also want to thank our partner, Jirka Rysavy, who always offered us his expert business advice throughout the years as we grew and expanded our company."
Comments