Former Texas Insurance Company Owners Buy Waco Tribune-Herald

July 17, 2009

The Waco Tribune-Herald will be under local ownership for the first time in 33 years.

Longtime Waco, Texas, insurance businessman and civic leader Clifton Robinson and his son, Gordon Robinson, are buying the 117-year-old newspaper from Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises.

The Robinsons are former owners of NLASCO Inc., a property and casualty insurance holding company and the parent firm of National Lloyds Insurance Company and American Summit Insurance Company. NLASCO was purchased by Affordable Residential Communities Inc. (ARC) of Englewood, Colo., in 2007.

The Tribune-Herald reports that neither the sale price nor the deal’s closing date will be disclosed.

Robinson announced that retired Tribune-Herald publisher Dan Savage will succeed Belinda Gaudet on an interim basis. Cox officials say Gaudet will retire, but all other newspaper employees will be retained.

Earlier this year, Cox sold The Lufkin Daily News and The Daily Sentinel of Nacogdoches to Houston-based Southern Newspapers. In Texas, Cox still owns the Austin American-Statesman, Longview News-Journal and Marshall News-Messenger.

Cox bought the newspaper in 1976 from Harlon Fentress, who ran a Waco-based chain of newspapers.

Topics Carriers Texas

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