Bentonvilles CPI Sells Remaining Assets To Warren Buffets BH Media Group

Community Publishers Inc. of Bentonville has closed on a deal to sell its remaining newspapers in Oklahoma to Warren Buffett’s company, BH Media Group.

In a news release sent Monday, BHMG now owns even newspapers in Oklahoma — the Broken Arrow Ledger, the Coweta American, the Owasso Reporter, the Sand Springs Leader, the Skiatook Journal, the Wagoner Tribune — all weekly papers — and the daily Tulsa Business & Legal News.

CPI, primarily owned by Jim Walton, was founded in 1982. It purchased the Oklahoma publications in 2005.

“Community Publishers is proud of its long and successful association with these Tulsa area community newspapers,” CPI chief executive Steve Trolinger said in the release. “And pleased that they will continue to serve the readers and advertisers in their respective markets under such an outstanding media organization as BH Media.”

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. After doing business for more than three decades and at one point employing more than 300 people in three states, CPI is now officially closed.

Trolinger and Walton, son of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. founder Sam Walton, founded CPI in 1982 with the purchase of the Benton County Daily Democrat in Bentonville, which became the Benton County Daily Record.

Just a few weeks ago, CPI sold its eight newspapers in Arkansas and Missouri, as well as its commercial printing operations in Missouri and Oklahoma, to Phillips Media Group LLC of Harrison.

CPI also previously owned the daily Northwest Arkansas Times (Fayetteville), plus 13 weekly newspapers in Benton and Washington counties. They were sold in August 2005 to Little Rock publisher Walter Hussman, founder of Wehco Media Group.

Trolinger told the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal that he plans to retire.

Mike Brown, former publisher of the Daily Record and president of CPI, said he will not continue with the new ownership group.