Businessman Kerry Stokes had bought The Canberra Times on this day in 1989.
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Stokes bought the Times and The Chronicle from media mogul Kerry Packer's Australian Consolidated Press.
The sale of the paper was sudden.
Staff at the paper were notified about the sale a day earlier after Mr Stokes flew from Perth to Canberra on his private jet.
The paper was sold a week before it was announced to staff, however, the sale was kept under wraps until staff were told about the decision.
There was speculation the secrecy was due to businessman Alan Bond also wanting to buy the paper.
The exact amount of money that Stokes paid was not public.
Yet, Stokes paid, in his words, "a lot of money" and bought the paper with cash.
Stokes told the paper: "Mr Packer generally doesn't sell things at a loss."
Mr Packer had only bought the Times in early 1988, along with other assets from Fairfax.
Stokes assured that under his ownership the paper would remain editorially independent.
At the time of this sale, media critics suggested the Times could grow into a national newspaper.
Stokes said he had not considered this change.
"But I wouldn't rule out anything - it may take us some time to make any evaluations on those sort of things," he said.
The Canberra Times has had many different owners through the years.
The paper would later be sold to Rural Press Limited in 1998. Rural Press Limited merged with Fairfax media in 2007. Fairfax and Nine merged in 2018. In 2018 Nine sold the Times and other Australian Community Media newspapers to Antony Catalano.