Halbreich Focuses On Southwest

By: Lucia Moses Three years ago, when Jeremy L. Halbreich quit The Dallas Morning News to start his own newspaper chain, Maine and Colorado seemed like places to be. In two years, he amassed 26 community papers from Bar Harbor, Maine, to Gunnison, Colo.

The relationship turned out to be short-lived. Halbreich, the founder of Dallas-based American Consolidated Media, has sold off most of his papers in the past several months to focus on the Southwest, where he sees more buying opportunities. He completed the divestiture Aug. 3 with the sale of six weekly and semiweekly papers in Maine to Crescent Publishing Co. LLC, Greenville, S.C., a company started in 1999 by former Gannett Co. Inc. executive William deB. "Bern" Mebane.

"It?s really just a matter of deciding where our time and efforts are best spent," Halbreich said. It didn?t help that "getting up to Maine is a long trip," he said.

Look for Halbreich to start buying again in the next 12 months, with backing from Arena Capital Partners of New York and Dallas, his main investor, and FleetBoston Financial Corp.

While he may be looking in the Dallas area, don?t expect him to go up against his old paper, the Morning News, where he last served as president. Halbreich prefers community papers far from metro centers. "I know the havoc that can be brought" on a paper that?s under the umbrella of a big metro, he said, "because I used to do it."