BizWest Media sells Wyoming Business Report to Adams Publishing Group

FORT COLLINS – BizWest Media LLC announced on Wednesday that the company has sold The Wyoming Business Report to APG Media of the Rockies LLC.

In the wake of the deal, the Wyoming Business Report became the sister publication to several community newspapers in Wyoming, including the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

The Wyoming Business Report was created almost 16 years ago when the publishers of the Northern Colorado Business Report (now BizWest Media) brought in veteran AP reporter Dennis Curran to cover Wyoming business, first as a few pages in the Colorado paper and then as a stand-alone publication. The Wyoming Business Report remains the only statewide newspaper devoted to business news.

BizWest Media, which has offices in Fort Collins and Boulder, is the publisher of BizWest, the biweekly business newspaper formed out of the merger of sister papers Boulder County Business Report and Northern Colorado Business Report in early 2014.

Jeff Nuttall, publisher and manager of BizWest Media, said that growing business endeavors in Colorado, including the publication BizWest and a software company, ate time he would have devoted to the Wyoming Business Report.

The sale, he said, should solve the time deficit and allow its new owners to give the publication the attention and resources it deserves.

Under APG Media of the Rockies, Wyoming Business Report will join the Wyoming Tribune Eagle in Cheyenne, the Laramie Boomerang, the Rawlins Daily Times and the Rock Springs Rocket-Miner in a new media family started when APG bought the McCracken Newspaper Group in October. It also bought the Post Register in Idaho Falls, Idaho in November.

APG is a subsidiary of Adams Publishing Group LLC, a family-owned media company headquartered in St. Louis Park, Minnesota.

The sale marks the first time the Wyoming Business Report has been directly affiliated with any other Wyoming newspaper. Wyoming Tribune Eagle Publisher Scott Walker said the sisterhood between Wyoming’s only statewide business publication and four community newspapers across the I-80 corridor will lead to great synergies and improve all the papers.

“None of the daily papers have a business reporter,” he said. “I think it’s just a good opportunity and Wyoming Business Report’s always been a big part of state. We want to continue that tradition and try to grow from it.”

Wyoming Business Report Executive Editor MJ Clark said that she was looking forward to gaining regular political reporting for the upcoming legislative session, as most freelance writers in Cheyenne work as lobbyists and are therefore unavailable.

As part of the purchase, APG hired back former Wyoming Business Report Publisher Belinda Nelson, who said she’s excited to be back with the team she left behind earlier this year. She said the strength of being part of a larger Wyoming publishing company should push the envelope for the Business Report as well as the other Wyoming papers that are now its siblings. The combined companies will have about 230 employees in Wyoming.

“They’re a good company and we’re going to have so much support locally,” Nelson said. She will be working out of the Wyoming Tribune Eagle offices.

Jeff Patterson, president of APG, said the group has long roots in journalism and newspapers that make it believe in the medium, especially at a local level. The group is young and has been acquiring publications across the country at a rapid pace. He said the recent acquisitions in the Rockies provides a solid foundation for the Wyoming papers, with the Business Report acquisition making solid strategic sense.

“It was certainly within our footprint and can really diversify the information we provide to the state of Wyoming,” he said. “We’ve now got a product that can speak to residents, and to the state from the business-to-business perspective. We really thought it was a great addition to the group.”

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