Boone Newspapers’ Affiliate to Acquire Lake Charles (LA) American Press and Southwest Daily NewsBack to News

Lake Charles, LA – November 17, 2020 – Shearman Company, LLC announced today it has entered into a preliminary agreement to sell the assets of the American Press in Lake Charles and Southwest Daily News in Sulphur to Carpenter Newsmedia (CNL), an affiliate of Boone Newspapers (BNI). The assets include its print publications, websites and commercial printing business.

Dirks, Van Essen & April, a media merger and acquisition firm based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is representing Shearman Company in the transaction. Terms were not disclosed.

BNI and CNL own and/or manage 74 related newspapers along with websites, shopping guides and magazines in communities in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas. Their Louisiana newspapers include the Bogalusa Daily News and L’Observateur in LaPlace. They publish the Orange (TX) Leader and the Port Arthur (TX) News, which are printed in Lake Charles.

The Shearman family has owned the American Press since 1943. “It has been an honor for our family to serve the community for so many years,” said American Press Publisher Tom Shearman. “BNI shares our commitment to local journalism and represents everything we had hoped to find in the next steward of our newspapers.”

”We are pleased and humbled to succeed the Shearman family in responsibility for the American Press and Southwest Daily News,” said Todd Carpenter, president and CEO of BNI and owner of CNL.  “We will work hard to meet our every obligation to the communities served and to build on the strong foundations put down by the Shearman Family, generations of journalists and good newspaper people who have been part of those newspapers over the years.”