Three major Canadian media companies are investing in The Canadian Press, a move that will complete the 93-year-old news agency's transformation from newspaper co-operative to for-profit corporation.

Torstar Corp., publisher of the Toronto Star, CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc., which owns the Globe and Mail newspaper, and Square Victoria Communications Group, which owns seven French-language newspapers, including La Presse, have jointly invested in Canadian Press Enterprises Inc., a new entity that will take over the agency.

The Canadian Press will maintain its editorial independence and continue to provide news in both official languages under the new ownership structure, the agency said Friday. It will also maintain exclusive rights to distribute content from the Associated Press in Canada.

"The new structure will create the financial strength we need to grow," Canadian Press president Eric Morrison said in a release.

"Our core mission remains unchanged — informing Canadians and giving them news on any platform they want, when they want it."

Montreal's La Presse, the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail are all long-standing members of Canadian Press. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

"My colleagues and I in the investment group are proud to be assuming ownership of this vital Canadian institution," Phillip Crawley, publisher of the Globe and Mail, said in a release.

"We will be upholding a very fine tradition and will take the organization into a bright future with excellent business prospects."

Gene Allen, a Ryerson journalism professor who is writing a history of The Canadian Press, said it's a major change for the venerable news agency.

"It's a very big change and it's a very new direction," he said. "It seems to be done out of necessity."

Canadian Press has been in the process of reinventing itself for years, trying to find new ways of expanding and generating revenue while moving away from the co-operative structure.

The co-op model worked well for many years, but it can be limiting because it's used mainly to serve the newspaper customers, Allen said.

"One of the things that's happening in the world now is that for news agencies to thrive and do well they need to be able to serve a number of different kinds of media and a number of different kinds of organizations," he said.

"They're smart people, and I think they wouldn't have got into this deal if they didn't intend to sell it widely," Allen said.

Members of the co-operative that didn't take an ownership stake in the new company will become commercial clients, and services to existing clients won't change under the new structure, the agency said. CBC News is among those clients.

The Canadian Press announced a year ago that it would become a for-profit corporation as part of an agreement with the federal government over its pension plans.

The deal with Ottawa allowed the co-operative time to reorganize itself to meet its ongoing pension obligations. Two companies — Sun Media and Canwest — pulled out of the co-operative in recent years.

The Canadian Press was created by newspaper publishers in 1917 during the First World War, when many were desperate to bring news of Canadian troops on the European front to their readers. It was incorporated under federal statute in 1923 as a co-operative owned by daily newspapers, allowing them to exchange news stories.

The news service has expanded over the years to include audio, pictures, video and animated graphics. It provides digital news content for online and mobile users.