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Charlotte's Creative Loafing, an alternative weekly founded in 1987, was sold Monday to SouthComm Inc., a Nashville, Tenn.-based publisher that specializes in niche publications in midsize cities.
Included in the sale, whose terms weren't made public, was Creative Loafing's Tampa edition. CL Inc. will retain Creative Loafing of Atlanta, Chicago Reader and Washington City Paper.
SouthComm operates alternative weeklies Nashville Scene, The Pitch of Kansas City, LEO Weekly of Louisville, Ky., and other speciality publications.
"We are excited to grow in Charlotte and Tampa, which are very good cities for us to build out our model ...," SouthComm's CEO Chris Ferrell said in a statement.
Saddled with debt from new acquisitions and struggling with falling advertising amid the recession, Creative Loafing's parent company entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2008. It was acquired for $5 million in 2009 by its biggest creditor, the New York-based private equity company Atalaya Capital Management LP. In December, CL Inc. shut down its Sarasota, Fla., edition of Creative Loafing.
Charlotte's Creative Loafing distributes 47,000 copies weekly, down from its peak of 55,000 copies in 2008.
