Landmark suspends efforts to sell its holdings, including community newspaper group

Landmark Communications Inc. has suspended efforts to sell most of its holdings, including Landmark Community Newspapers Inc., "because potential buyers can't get credit and values have declined with falling advertising volume," reports Cody Lowe of The Roanoke Times, one of the family-owned company's three major dailies.

Frank Batten Jr., Landmark's chairman and CEO, said in a news release, "The credit crisis has made it virtually impossible for companies to obtain bank commitments to help finance acquisitions, and Landmark "will operate its businesses for several years before re-instituting the sales process, although it will consider offers during the interim."

Meanwhile, however, Landmark Community Newspapers, based in Shelbyville, Ky., will be sharing its president with Landmark Publishing Group, which operates the dailies in Roanoke, Greensboro and the firm's headquarters city of Norfolk. Bruce Bradley, president of that subsidary, will retire by the end of the year. Mike Abernathy, president of LCNI, "will succeed Bradley while continuing in his current job," the Times reports. (Read more)