The new owner of the Portland Mercury and its Seattle sibling publication, The Stranger, says he will seek to grow the companies by boosting philanthropic support and revenue from their events business.

The media executive who led the purchase of the Portland Mercury and Seattle’s The Stranger said Tuesday he won’t cut any jobs, promising to expand the alternative publications and preserve their editorial independence.

“There were no layoffs,” said Brady Walkinshaw, formerly a Democratic lawmaker in Washington state and CEO of the online environmental publication Grist. “Everyone will be offered positions in the new company.”

A newly formed ownership group called Noisy Creek will own both the Portland and Seattle publications, plus an events publication called EverOut and an affiliated ticketing business, Bold Type Tickets. They had previously been owned by Index Newspapers.

Noisy Creek declined to discuss terms of its acquisition or say whether it has taken on debt to finance the deals.

The company will employ 40 people in Seattle and Portland with a budget between $5 million to $10 million across Noisy Creek, Walkinshaw said, and will remain a for-profit operation. The Mercury will retain founding editor Wm. Steven Humphrey while The Stranger has hired Hannah Murphy Winter, formerly at Rolling Stone, as editor-in-chief.

Noisy Creek plans to diversify the papers’ revenue stream by attracting philanthropic support and expanding business in ticketing, movie festivals and live events, according to Walkinshaw.

“From Day One we will be growing,” he said.

Index Media Union, which represents 16 workers at the two papers, was guarded in its initial reaction to the publications’ sale Monday but was more optimistic after hearing directly from Walkinshaw on Tuesday morning.

“I am excited about having new resources and how those could help support our workers,” said Taylor Griggs, news reporter at the Portland Mercury. “I’m also very interested in the prospect of adding editorial staff.”

The Stranger and the Mercury unionized earlier this year but haven’t negotiated their first contract yet. Griggs said that process and the terms of Noisy Creek’s deal with workers will be important tests for the new ownership.

“We’re very focused on that in the upcoming months,” Griggs said.

The news business has been under extreme pressure over the last 20 years as pressure from online advertising undercut the core of the industry’s revenue base. Big chains like Gannett have slashed the editorial departments in Salem, Eugene and other cities. Oregon newspapers have lost three-quarters of their jobs this century.

Formerly free weeklies, The Stranger and Mercury now operate primarily online. The Stranger publishes a print edition about eight times a year, and the Mercury publishes occasional special themed editions.

Dozens of Northwest papers have changed hands already this year, and EO Media, which owns The Bulletin and 15 publications in smaller communities in Oregon and Washington, put itself up for sale last month.

New ownership hasn’t solved the underlying economic challenges facing the industry. Carpenter Media, the chain that bought papers this year from Alaska to Everett, Washington, to Prineville, laid off staff shortly after taking ownership. The job losses included at least a half dozen at former Pamplin Media papers in Oregon.