Alden Global Capital, the New York hedge fund that bought Tribune Publishing this year, said on Monday that it was making an offer for another big American newspaper chain, Lee . New York hedge fund and U.S. newspaper consolidator Alden Global Capital LLC has made a proposal to take Lee Enterprises Inc. private in a deal that values the company at around $141 million. The model is simple: Gut the staff, sell the real estate, jack up subscription prices, and wring as much cash as possible out of the enterprise until eventually enough readers cancel their subscriptions that the paper folds, or is reduced to a desiccated husk of its former self. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. By the 1980s, this strategy has made Randy luxuriously wealthyvacations in the French Riviera, a family compound outside New York Cityand he has begun to school his children on the wonders of capitalism. . by Magnus Shaw..An enormous advertising company (Leo Burnett) and a small creative film company (Asylum) have had a difficult couple of weeks. Hes impressed by their journalism, he told me, but his clearest takeaway is that theyre not nearly well funded enough. We were in collective revolt, Lillian Reed, a Sun reporter who helped organize the campaign, told me. According to Aldens scarce SEC filings, it currently has fewer than 10 investors, most of them from overseas. But who most of those few souls are, and how much of the hundreds of millions skimmed from DFM papers theyve received remains a deep, dark mystery. She was writing about Aldens growing newspaper empire, and wanted to know what it was like to be the last news reporter in town. He quotes H. L. Mencken, the papers crusading 20th-century columnist, on the joys of journalism: It is really the life of kings. Already the largest shareholder . After Brian took his own life, in 2001, Smith became a mentor and confidant to Heath, who was in college at the time of his fathers death. The Tampa Bay Times has sold its printing plant at 1301 34th St. N to a real estate arm of Alden Global Capital, a New York hedge fund that is the second-largest newspaper owner in the country. Meanwhile, the Tribunes remaining staff, which had been spread thin even before Alden came along, struggled to perform the newspapers most basic functions. A group of 11 community newspapers owned by Red Wing Publishing Co. have been sold to MediaNews Group, owner of the St. Paul Pioneer Press and more than 100 newspapers across the country. [8][24] Tribune Publishing publishes nine major metropolitan dailies. When it was over, a quarter of the newsroom was gone. The Alden Global Capital . Now he was feeling the effects of their management. Earnest and unpolished, with a perpetually mussed mop of hair, Bainum presented himself as a contrast to the cutthroat capitalists at Alden. That gave the journalists at the Sun a brief window to stop the sale from going through. Freeman never responded. I sort of bully people around to get stuff done, he boasted to The Washington Post in 1985. Yes, today, it's a newspaper without a newsroom. But as long as Alden had made back its money, the investment would be a success. Now it might be facing extinction. Newspaper publisher Lee Enterprises is asking its shareholders to help it fight off a hostile takeover . The Tribune Company (which owns the newspapers mentioned above) was still turning a profit when Alden bought it, but the hedge fund immediately offered aggressive rounds of buyouts and shrunk its newsrooms in the name of increasing profit margins. In the past 15 years, more than a quarter of American newspapers have gone out of business. In recent months, hes been meeting with leaders of local-news start-ups across the countryThe Texas Tribune, the Daily Memphian, The City in New Yorkand collecting best practices. This was the core of Freemans argument. What happens next? As a reporter whos covered Alden Global Capital for more than two years, people often ask me who are the investors behind the hedge fund that owns one of Americas largest newspaper chains? In May 2021, Tribune Publishing finalized its sale to Alden, after having announced in February 2021 that it intended to pursue this path. Maybe theyd cancel their subscriptions eventually; maybe the papers would fold altogether. But for that to happen, the Big Tech money would need to flow to underfunded newsrooms, not into the pockets of Aldens investors. It's traded in a prestigious downtown newsroom for a "Chipotle-sized office" near the printing press. Convinced that the Sun wont be able to provide the kind of coverage the city needs, he has set out to build a new publication of record from the ground up. The Tribune had been profitable when Alden took over. To industry observers, Aldens brazen model set it apart even from chains like Gannett, known for its aggressive cost-cutting. Of course, its easy to romanticize past eras of journalism. Alden, which owns more than 200 newspapers across the country, has developed a reputation for using extensive layoffs and severe cost cuts at the newspapers it owns. But Glidden felt sure he knew the real reason: Alden wanted him gone. Most of his investments are defined by a cold pragmatism, but he takes a more personal interest in the media sector. If accepted, the $24 per share purchase price would . Theres no industry that I can think of more integral to a working democracy than the local-news business, he said. The 1% own and operate the . He used his own money to pull court records, and went years without going on a vacation. Several years later, when Heath was still in his mid-20s, Smith co-founded Alden Global Capital with him, and eventually put him in charge of the firm. But outside the industry, few seemed to notice. Two days after the deal was finalized, Alden announced an aggressive round of buyouts. Alden Global Capital revealed a proposal Monday to purchase Lee Enterprise Inc. and its newspapers at $24 a share, casting alarm through the many newsrooms owned by Lee. For two men who employ thousands of journalists, remarkably little is known about them. Even as Aldens portfolio grew, Freeman rarely visited his newspapers. . [6][7][8][9], The company operates its media holdings through Digital First Media (DFM), which it acquired in 2010 after DMG's parent company, MediaNews Group, declared bankruptcy. . About a month after The Baltimore Sun was acquired by Alden, a senior editor at the paper took questions from anxious reporters on Zoom. [4], In 2019, Alden attempted, but failed at, a hostile takeover of Gannett. But for all the theatrics, his marching orders were always the same: Cut more. A spokesman took issue with the entirety of the story, and laid out a long list of questions attacking the integrity of the reporter, The Atlantic and some of his sources without addressing some of the more specific claims within the report. But by 2013, despite deep losses to Alden funds overall values in the previous two years, Smith was able to begin buying his now infamous swath of South Florida mansions for $58 million and Freeman was acquiring multi-million-dollar New York condos. It has not, however, retained the Chicago Tribune. Theyre being targeted by investors who have figured out how to get rich by strip-mining local-news outfits. Some people believe that local newspapers will eventually be replaced by new publications, which Coppins describes as "built from the ground-up for the digital era." The shows premise pits two couples against each other for the chance to win a home. Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund known for gutting local newsrooms, is seeking to buy Lee Enterprises (LEE), a publicly traded company with a chain of daily newspapers and other publications . At the Suns peak, it employed more than 400 journalists, with reporters in London and Tokyo and Jerusalem. As the months passed, things kept getting worse. Morale tanked; reporters burned out. In the face of that setback, Alden said it would turn to the tactic of filing a proxy statement asking the company's shareholders to vote no on board members Mary Junck and Herbert Moloney during the March 2022 board elections. Updated May 21, 2021 at 2:13 PM ET. Traditional newspaper business model says you make 95% of your money off ad sales and the rest off subscriptions. Research shows that when local newspapers disappear or are dramatically gutted, communities tend to see lower voter turnout, increased polarization, a general erosion of civic engagement and an environment in which misinformation and conspiracy theories can spread more easily. One tagline he was considering was Marylands Best Newsroom., When I asked, half in jest, if he planned to raid the Sun to staff up, he responded with a muted grin. . Well, that wasnt the point. [2] Its managing director is Heath Freeman. In a news release Monday, Alden said it sent Lee's board a letter with the offer. ", "The most feared owner in American journalism looks set to take some of its greatest assets", "Minority shareholder sues Denver Post parent and NY hedge fund over 'breaches of fiduciary duty', "What does the Chicago Tribune sale mean for the future of newsrooms? At the same time, he increased subscription prices in many markets; it would take awhile for subscribersmany of them older loyalists who didnt carefully track their billsto notice that they were paying more for a worse product. MediaNews Group came out of bankruptcy in March 2010 under the majority ownership of its lenders. The men who devised this model are Randall Smith and Heath Freeman, the co-founders of Alden Global Capital. In 2016 (year of the most recent 990 available), the foundation invested $17 million in Alden funds. At the end of last month, Alden Global Capital, a notorious newspaper-owning hedge fund, sought to stake its claim on one of the last newspaper chains it hasn't yet touched: Lee Enterprises, which owns 90 publications across the country.Alden, which currently owns six percent of Lee's stock, sent an unsolicited offer to purchase the newspaper chain for $24 per share. Probably not.. The consequences can influence national politics as well; an analysis by Politico found that Donald Trump performed best during the 2016 election in places with limited access to local news. Collectively, they control about one-half of daily newspapers in the U.S. [2] [3] By mid-2020, Alden had stakes in roughly two hundred American newspapers. When hed agreed to the interview, Id expected him to say the things he was supposed to saythat the layoffs and buyouts were necessary but tragic; that he held local journalism in the highest esteem; that he felt a sacred responsibility to steer these newspapers toward a robust future. One early article, in the trade publication Poynter, suggested that Aldens interest in the local-news business could be seen as flattering and quoted the owner of The Denver Post as saying he had enormous respect for the firm.
Steve Schirripa Politics,
Ethan Silverman Blackstone,
Articles W
| hamilton physicians group patient portal | |||
| california high school track and field records | |||