Smithfield Times to be sold

The Smithfield Times (Virginia) is being sold.

Longtime Virginia newspaper publisher Steve Stewart, principal owner of newly formed Smithfield Newsmedia, has an agreement in principle to buy the paper from John and Anne Edwards, the paper reported.  

Stewart is a former publisher of the Suffolk News-Herald. The paper will be an affiliate of Alabama-based Boone Newspapers, which owns the News-Herald and The Tidewater News in Franklin, the Virginian-Pilot reports.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Stewart will be majority owner of Smithfield Newsmedia and the paper’s publisher. Also invested are Boone Newspapers, Suffolk News-Herald publisher John Carr, Tidewater News publisher Tony Clark, and Carpenter Newsmedia, a company owned by Boone’s president and CEO, the Virginian-Pilot reports. The deal is expected to close by Nov. 1.

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