American Community Newspapers Announces the Acquisition of Suburban Washington NewspapersBack to News

ALEXANDRIA, VA, September 6, 2005 – American Community Newspapers, LLC, ("ACN") today announced that it has purchased the newspaper assets of Suburban Washington Newspapers, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Better Built Group, Inc. The transaction includes the two weekly Sun Gazette newspapers, which serve the Northern Virginia communities of Arlington and Great Falls/McLean/Vienna/Oakton, as well as the two monthly publications titled Middleburg Life and Parent Life. Combined and non-duplicated circulation for the group exceeds 105,000 households.

Dirks, Van Essen & Murray, a newspaper merger-and-acquisition firm in Santa Fe, New Mexico, represented The Better Built Group, Inc., in the transaction. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In announcing the acquisition, Gene M. Carr, chief executive officer of ACN stated, “The Sun Gazettes and their related publications are well established, landmark newspapers that have proudly served the growing communities of Northern Virginia and the surrounding area since 1935. Rupert Phillips, Clint Daws and their management team have done an outstanding job with these newspapers and we are very enthusiastic about their future prospects.”

Donna M. Talla, the current publisher of Suburban Washington Newspapers, will continue in her position as publisher of these publications.

“We have worked hard over the past several years to build the Sun Gazettes into the fine publications they are today,” said Better Built president Rupert Phillips. “These newspapers have experienced tremendous growth under our ownership and we believe that they are ideally positioned to continue to capture a disproportionate share of the growth in this outstanding market.”

ACN is a group of three daily and 70 weekly newspapers and five niche publications, which reaches over one million households. The company’s other operations are located in and around Minneapolis – St. Paul, Dallas – Forth Worth, and Kansas City metropolitan areas.

For further information Phil Murray at Dirks, Van Essen & Murray, (phone) 505-820-2700, (fax) 505-820-2900, or visit our website at www.dirksvanessen.com.