Boone affiliates acquire Georgia newspapers

Affiliates of Boone Newspapers Inc. (BNI) have acquired two newspapers in Georgia from Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. Americus Newsmedia LLC has purchased the Americus (Ga.) Times-Recorder, and Cordele Newsmedia LLC has purchased the Cordele (Ga.) Dispatch. Both new Georgia entities are wholly owned by Carpenter Newsmedia LLC, an affiliate of Boone Newspapers Inc. with offices in Natchez, Miss., and Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Dirks, Van Essen & Murray, a merger and acquisition firm based in Santa Fe, N.M., represented CNHI in the sale.

Todd Carpenter of Natchez is BNI's president and chief executive officer and is principal owner of CNL. James B. Boone, Jr., of Tuscaloosa, is BNI's chairman.

Carpenter said he and Boone are "deeply appreciative of the confidence CNHI has placed in CNL and BNI as their successors, and we will work hard to merit that confidence."

CNL has ownership in BNI affiliates in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Texas and Virginia. BNI owns and manages 69 newspapers in similar-sized communities in those states, as well as in Minnesota, Michigan and Ohio. Carpenter has been president and CEO of BNI for the past 10 years.

BNI has a rich history of quality newspapers, websites, magazines and other publications in the communities it serves, explained in part by Boone's corporate philosophy: "We seek to produce the highest quality product the economics of the community can support. And then, by ingenuity and imagination, we strive for a higher quality in an effort to serve and build that community."