Swift Communications sells newspapers to Ogden

GREELEY — Swift Communications Inc., the company that at one time owned the Greeley Tribune, has sold to Ogden Newspapers, a fifth-generation family-owned company founded by H.S. Ogden in 1890 based in West Virginia.

While the Tribune was sold to Prairie Mountain Publishing, a division of Media News Group, in February 2020, Swift retained the ag publication The Fence Post with headquarters in Greeley. The Fence Post was part of the sale to Ogden and will be part of Ogden’s magazine division based in Topeka, Kansas, according to long-time Swift executive Bob Brown. 

The sale, expected to close Dec. 31, includes numerous Colorado newspapers, including the Steamboat Pilot and Today, Aspen Times, Snowmass Sun, Glenwood Springs Post Independent, Vail Daily, Summit Daily News, Craig Daily Press and Sky-Hi News. Swift also sold its newspapers in California, Nevada and Utah and its printing plants.

Ogden now has 54 daily newspapers and several weekly magazines in 18 states, according to a story published in the Swift newspapers today. The deal includes the Swift name, although the Swift corporate entity will continue to operate as Questor Corp., which will retain several real estate assets, farm-based magazine Acres USA and Breaking Ground Institute, which conducts training courses on or for regenerative food systems, influential women and emerging leaders in food and agriculture.

A prior shareholder of Swift, Marilyn Shelton, made her home in Fort Collins, although she had sold her shares in the company prior to this transaction and had moved to southern California. 

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