Most of the newspapers that currently make up Alta and Continental were purchased from The Thomson Corporation between 1999 and 2001 by Horizon, a family of companies owned by David Radler and Conrad Black, independently from Radler's and Black's roles as COO and CEO, respectively, of Hollinger Inc. During the 2000s, both men were convicted of defrauding Hollinger and served time in prison;[1] Black sold his interest in Horizon in 2006;[2] and Radler organized his Canadian holdings into two companies, including a limited partnership for his two Alberta dailies and associated weeklies.
The chain, originally called Southern Alberta Newspapers and renamed Alta Group Newspapers, consisted of the former Thomson dailies Lethbridge Herald and Medicine Hat News, and a group of weeklies covering suburban and rural communities in the Lethbridge-Medicine Hat area.
[3] The company has not made any major acquisitions since 2006, although it has bought out biweekly newspapers that competed with its dailies in Lethbridge[4] and Sherbrooke.
[2][3] Alta was formed, however, out of a subsidiary of Horizon Publications Inc.,[5] a company acknowledged to have been owned and operated primarily by Radler.
[7] Sam Grippo, Glacier's chairman of the board, was a group publisher at Hollinger during Radler's time as chief operating officer.