Washington Post Co. shares immediately spike on word that the company had sold its money sucking newspapers to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos for $250 million. In immediate after-hours trading, shares climbed nearly 5.5 percent to $599.85.
Also read: Amazon's Jeff Bezos Buys Washington Post for $250 Million in Cash
The parent company, valued at $4.2 billion, announced the sale of the money-losing newspaper as well as several other smaller papers on Monday after the market closed. It will retain its more valuable real estate assets, Kaplan educational services and Slate.com.
Also read: Jeff Bezos to Washington Post Staff: 'We'll Need to Invent, Which Means Experiment'
The move, first reported on WaPo's website, comes as a surprise — the Post never announced it was for sale and had been owned and published by the Graham family since 1933. They'd shopped the paper to a half-dozen suitors, the paper said, with "extraordinary secrecy."
It is Bezos first newspaper purchase.