Nashville-based media company SouthComm acquires Creative Loafing Atlanta and Washington City Paper

• http://clatl.com/atlanta/ImageArchives?by=1223504
• We welcome our Nashville-based overlords!

Creative Loafing Atlanta has been purchased by SouthComm Inc., a Nashville-based media company. The sale also includes CL’s sister publication Washington City Paper in D.C. (Here’s WCP’s write-up of the sale.) Once the transition to new ownership is complete, Creative Loafing Inc. will no longer exist as a company.

SouthComm, which now publishes eight alt-weeklies and more than 20 niche publications total, bought the paper for an undisclosed sum from Atalaya Capital Management. The New York-based hedge fund took control of the company in August 2009 after Ben Eason, the former owners and son of CL’s founders, lost the paper during bankruptcy proceedings.

In a press release - as well as a lunch conversation that I’m not saying happened last week but probably did - SouthComm CEO Chris Ferrell said he expected no immediate editorial changes at the papers. Ferrell said he will examine each market to decide whether to introduce new print and digital products to complement the publications. Ferrell, a former Nashville city councilman who formed the company in 2007, said that although Atlanta and D.C. represent larger markets than SouthComm has previously served, the company’s business principles still apply.