The owner of the Rocky Mountain News had serious discussions with a Texas private-equity investor named Brian Ferguson, but those talks ended earlier this month.

"The complex nature of the joint operating agreement and the large number of constituencies involved prevented us from being able to adequately mitigate the risks involved in an acquisition," Ferguson said Thursday.

Ferguson declined to discuss the terms of his offer, his operating plan for the Rocky or his talks with other parties.

"We were very excited about the opportunity the Rocky presented, especially the high quality of journalism produced by the staff," he said. "We committed a significant amount of time and resources attempting to craft a successful offer for the paper."

Officials with E.W. Scripps declined to address Ferguson's remarks, since Scripps made potential buyers sign nondisclosure agreements that also protected their identity. Ferguson received Scripps' permission to identify himself Thursday, he said.

"Scripps' management team went above and beyond anything we would have expected to help try and close a sale of the Rocky," Ferguson said. "Unfortunately, we were unable to deliver on our end of the bargain, and I regret that we failed both for the folks inside the newsroom and in Colorado."

Ferguson is an attorney and accountant who represents private-equity investors in the Austin and Midland, Texas areas. One group is called TXA Exploration, which invests in oil and gas exploration and production properties. Another investor group, the one that was interested in the Rocky, is Midland Media Partners.

He's also worked as controller of a Texas electric utility and as an accountant with international accounting firm KPMG.

Before Ferguson revealed himself, Scripps executives made brief comments about the potential buyer.

He had "lots of desire, but no (newspaper) operating experience," Mark Contreras, senior vice president of newspapers at the Cincinnati-based company, said. Contreras said he "presented a plan, but didn't have the funding locked up."

Scripps CEO Rich Boehne said the potential buyer "thought it would be an interesting situation to jump into," but ultimately "backed away."

Boehne added that when a newspaper is put up for sale, "all sorts of characters come out of the woodwork. You get calls from pay phones in a park. You treat them all the same."

Because the Rocky is part of a joint operating agreement under the federal Newspaper Preservation Act, Scripps had to demonstrate to the Justice Department it was making a good faith attempt to find a buyer that would keep the paper open.

The White Wolf Media Group of Helena, Mont., was the first and only group to publicly express an interest in acquiring the Rocky Mountain News.

Scripps said on Dec. 4 the company would take offers through mid-January. Company officials said early in the process that a "handful" of potential buyers had requested the confidential packet of financial and demographic information Scripps had prepared.

The closure of the Rocky in Denver is only part of a much broader story as the industry reels amid a sharp decline in advertising revenue and newspaper readership because of the Internet.

A number of papers are on the block.

Hearst announced earlier this week it will close or sell the San Francisco Chronicle if it is unable to cut expenses dramatically within a few weeks.

Last month, Hearst unveiled plans to close the Seattle Post-Intelligencer if a buyer isn't found before April.

Gannett Co., meanwhile, is looking for a buyer for the Tucson Citizen in Arizona.