The story
Managed as a trust by Bank of Boston, Alta was formed in 1977 to oversee four newspapers and five charities owned by the Foster and Whitehouse families.
In May 1996, the bank announced it would sell the chain in order to meet financial obligations to the trust's beneficiaries.
CNC, which already owned daily newspapers bordering The Milford Daily News on the north and east (the Middlesex News and Daily Transcript, respectively), emerged as the top bidder later that year. Bill Elfers, CNC's CEO, called the Milford paper "an outstanding property". It had made nearly US$5 million in revenues the year before, out of about US$10 million for the full Alta chain, which cleared about US$1 million after expenses (but before taxes).
Terms of the deal were not made public. It was CNC's first foray into newspaper ownership outside Massachusetts; at the time, some speculated that the company would quickly turn around and sell the New York and Maine dailies. Elfers denied these rumors, but within a year, CNC had indeed unloaded the Journal Tribune and Evening Times.
The Milford paper remains part of the CNC chain, now a division of GateHouse Media.
From Wikipedia’s article on Alta Group Newspapers, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3