Boone affiliates have acquired Texas newspapers

Affiliates of Boone Newspapers, Inc. (BNI) has acquired the Port Arthur News and Orange Leader and related publications in southeastern Texas from Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc.  

Dirks, Van Essen & Murray, a merger and acquisition firm based in Santa Fe, New Mexico represented Community Newspaper Holdings (CNHI) in the sale.

The Port Arthur News is published daily and Sunday with weekday circulation of 8,100.  The Leader is published twice weekly with paid circulation of approximately 3,000.  The sale ends more than a decade of operation of the newspapers by CNHI.

Rich Macke will continue as publisher of the two newspapers.  Todd Carpenter of Natchez is BNI’s president and chief executive officer and is principal owner of the related entities making the acquisition.  James B. Boone, Jr., of Tuscaloosa, Ala., is BNI’s chairman and chief executive officer of BNI.

“It has been a privilege to be associated with the hard working teams in Port Arthur for the past decade.  We wish Todd Carpenter, Jim Boone and their companies all the best as they move forward in these communities,” said CNHI Executive Vice President and COO Steve McPhaul.

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

“We are pleased Rich Macke will remain as publisher,” Carpenter said. “His steady leadership and knowledge of community newspapers will be important to us during the transition and thereafter.  We look forward to becoming a part of the community and county served and will work hard to meet our every obligation to readers, customers, employees and all who have a stake in the future of these communities.”

Carpenter’s companies have ownership in BNI affiliates in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina and Virginia.  Carpenter has been president and CEO of BNI for the past 10 years. BNI owns and manages 59 newspapers in similar-sized communities that, in addition to those in which Carpenter’s companies have ownership interest, are in Minnesota, Michigan and Ohio.