According to the Wall Street Journal Robert Parker is selling a "substantial interest" in the Wine Advocate to a trio of Singapore-based investors and he is relinquishing editorial control to his Singapore-based correspondent, Lisa Perrotti-Brown.

Reuters columnist Felix Salmon mused

Nothing about this deal makes any sense, on its face. The new owners are going to start accepting advertising — something which makes sense financially, since those 50,000 subscribers tend to be extremely well-heeled. But at the same time, they’re scrapping the print version of the newsletter, despite the fact that (a) it’s profitable, and (b) they would surely be able to charge much higher rates for print ads than for online ads.

The new owners also have no experience either in wine or in publishing: Parker says that they’re “young visionaries” in the financial-services and IT fields.

Read more, Reuters