LI community newspapers sold to investment firm

Several Long Island community newspapers were sold to a Washington D.C. investment firm as of the New Year.

Tribco Llc, based in Queens, sold all its assets to Phoenix Financial Holdings, the two firms announced Jan. 2. Terms of the deal, including the purchase price, were not disclosed.

Tribco owns The Long Islander -- one of the island's oldest publications and founded by poet Walt Whitman, the Half Hollow Hills Newspaper and the Record, which covers Northport and Commack. Its primary holding is the Queens Tribune, a paper founded in 1970 by former Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Roslyn Heights), who retired this past week. The company also owns many legal publications, an advertising firm and DineHuntington, organizers of Huntington Restaurant Week.

Michael Schenkler, the president of Tribco and publisher of the papers, said he had been looking to sell the company for about a year due to a combination of economic factors and a desire to begin semiretirement. He will stay on as a consultant after the acquisition is complete.

Brandy Williams, the chairman of Phoenix Financial Holdings, said he hopes to bring in a new publisher that will expand the newspapers' presence online and coverage of local communities in Queens and Long Island.