Newspaper image via flickr user Jon S under a Creative Commons license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

A chain of local newspapers has been sold to another company that has been rapidly acquiring print publications locally and across the country.

Newspaper chain Lee Enterprises has sold its local holdings — “The Hanford Sentinel,” “Kingsburg Recorder” and “Selma Enterprise” — to an entity called Santa Maria News Media, Inc.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The sale announced earlier this month also includes newspapers in Santa Maria and Lompoc owned by Lee Enterprises.

Santa Maria News Inc. is a newly formed corporation in California led by a group of Canadian newspaper executives, reported the “Lompoc Record” newspaper, which was included in the deal.

Its parent company is Sound News Media, which made a splash last summer when it purchased the “Bakersfield Californian” newspaper out of 122 years of family ownership.

The “Porterville Recorder” newspaper is also owned by the same group, which was referred to in this “Los Angeles Times” article discussing the “mystery investors buying some of California’s last family-owned newspapers.”