Joyo Press will be dissolved due to financial difficulties but a new company will be set up next month to take over the publishing of its newspaper, company sources said Saturday.
Joyo is the publisher of the Joyo Shimbun daily newspaper in Ibaraki Prefecture.
The publisher, based in Tsuchiura in the prefecture and reportedly 700 million yen in debt, is scheduled to hold a meeting of shareholders to approve the dissolution on Feb. 28, the sources said.
The meeting will also endorse the March 1 establishment of the new company, they said.
All 70 staff will be dismissed on Feb. 28 but are expected to be rehired by the new company. It will be funded by local companies and led by an official from Jiji Press Ltd., a major Japanese news agency based in Tokyo.
Joyo Press' first predecessor started publishing a newspaper in 1948. It was then transformed into a stock company, and it renamed the daily the Joyo Shimbun in 1950. In 1972, it joined the Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association.
In 1985, it was liquidated due to financial difficulties stemming from a project related to a major science expo in the prefecture. The current company took over the paper then, but has incurred a capital deficit for the past several years. It is capitalized at 162 million yen.