By: E&P Staff Forum Communications Co., owner of The Forum in Fargo, N.D., has bought a chain that publishes area weeklies.
Forum bought Davon Press Inc., which publishes the weekly West Fargo Pioneer, with a paid circulation 2,270; the Midweek, a weekly newspaper with free distribution of 51,750; and the bi-monthly Fargo-Moorhead Magazine. Davon also operates a commercial printing company.
Dirks, Van Essen & Murray, a newspaper merger-and-acquisition firm in Santa Fe, N.M., represented Davon Press in the transaction. Terms of the purchase were not announced.
"To ensure future growth of the publications, we have decided that the time has come to accept The Forum's offer to purchase the corporation," Donovan and Betty Witham, founders and majority shareholders of Davon Press, Inc., said in a joint statement.
The couple built Davon Press from its start, beginning in 1967 with the establishment of the West Fargo Pioneer.
"This acquisition is a perfect fit for our company," William C. Marcil, president and CEO of Forum Communications, said in a statement. "Don and I go back many years discussing this possibility and I'm very pleased that Davon Press remains locally owned." Marcil said Forum did not plan "any significant changes in personnel."
Forum owns newspapers, broadcast and interactive media, and commercial printing businesses in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
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