In 1998 the McClatchy Company purchased Cowles Media Company for $1.4 billion (equivalent to $ in ), ending the newspaper's 61-year history in the family in one of the largest sales in American newspaper history. Although McClatchy sold many of Cowles's smaller assets, it kept the "Star Tribune" for several years. On December 26, 2006, McClatchy sold the paper to private equity firm Avista Capital Partners for $530 million (equivalent to $ in ), less than half of what it had paid for Cowles eight years earlier.