Senior Managers Buy American Community Newspapers

Posted Monday, December 13, 2004 12:00 am

By: E&P Staff American Community Newspapers CEO Gene Carr and other senior managers backed by two big venture capital investors have bought the assets of the company, which publishes of the daily Stillwater (Minn.) Gazette and the Sun weeklies in Minneapolis/St. Paul and Kansas City.

Organized as ACN Holding LLC, the new owners include Spire Capital Partners, a private equity fund that invests in media and communications properties; and Wachovia Capital Partners, the investing affiliate of Wachovia Corp.

Eden Prairie, Minn.-based American Community Newspapers had been owned by the investment firm BMO Nesbitt Burns.

No terms of the transaction were released.

The sale includes the Stillwater daily and 41 community papers of Sun Newspapers in Minnesota; the weekly community papers and several niche publications of Sun Publications, based in Overland Park, Kan.; and the Star Community Newspapers in the Dallas, Texas, market.

In a statement, Carr said the new owners intend to buy and launch new papers from its markets: "In addition to Spire, Wachovia and our new lenders afford us the capability to launch new newspapers in all three existing metro areas, to acquire other suburban newspapers in each market as well as the ability to acquire or build similar suburban newspaper groups in other Top 50 markets in the U.S."

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Senior Managers Buy American Community Newspapers

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