Russ Smith is a puckish libertarian whose self-described contempt for the journalistic class animates the pages of the publication. Who is investor Randall Smith and why is he buying up newspaper companies, deep losses to Alden funds overall values, Denver Post newsroom workers invoke Thirst Amendment to raise awareness about conditions under Alden, Pittsburgh newspaper workers are making history, The NewsGuild urges public pension funds to divest from Cerberus, NewsGuild to Lee Shareholders: Reject Aldens Vote No Campaign. This company that owns us now seems to still be prettyI dont even know how to put it, the editor said, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The Atlantic. | Michael Gray, WIkimedia Commons. But a sense of fatalism permeated the work. Heath Freeman in an undated photo provided by Goldin Solutions . Theyre being targeted by investors who have figured out how to get rich by strip-mining local-news outfits. Theres little evidence that Alden cares about the sustainability of its newspapers. 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. Alden Global Capital owns 56 dailies under Digital First Media (Alden also owns 32% of Tribune 10 dailies in Column C.) Tribune Media owns 10 dailies. [10] With its acquisition of Tribune Publishing in late May 2021, Alden is collectively the second-largest owner of newspapers in the United States, as calculated by average daily print circulation, second only to Gannett. A Secretive Hedge Fund Is Gutting Newsrooms. Read: What we lost when Gannett came to town. Aldens calculus was simple. It turned out that those ownersNew York hedge funders whom Glidden took to calling the lizard peoplewere laser-focused on increasing the papers profit margins. By 2011, when Aldens Distressed Opportunities Fund lost more than 20 percent of its value, Knights holdings in the fund were valued at $10.7 million. We must finally require the online tech behemoths, such as Google, Apple, and Facebook, to fairly compensate us for our original news content, he told me. Knight began selling off its Alden holdings in 2012, and got completely out in 2014.
Is this company saving newspapers or profiting from their demise? - The 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. For two men who employ thousands of journalists, remarkably little is known about them. 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. Stewart Bainum, since losing his bid for the Sun, has been quietly working on a new venture. This once-proud publication is now owned and run by Alden Global Capital, a multibillion-dollar hedge fund with a long record of buying papers on the cheap, selling off their assets and slashing pay and jobs. But while its true that Alden entered the industry by purchasing floundering newspapers, not all of them were necessarily doomed to liquidation. He gained 100 pounds and started grinding his teeth at night. Below are highlights from his conversation with Morning Edition's A Martnez. 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. In the ensuing exodus, the paper lost the Metro columnist who had championed the occupants of a troubled public-housing complex, and the editor who maintained a homicide database that the police couldnt manipulate, and the photographer who had produced beautiful portraits of the states undocumented immigrants, and the investigative reporter whod helped expose the governors offshore shell companies. Most of his investments are defined by a cold pragmatism, but he takes a more personal interest in the media sector.
Billionaires battle for Tribune Publishing | The Economist Hedge fund Alden to buy Tribune Publishing in deal valued at $630 He had spoken on this issue before, and it was easy to see why. Prior to the buildings completion, McCormick directed his foreign correspondents to collect fragments of various historical sitesa brick from the Great Wall of China, an emblem from St. Peters Basilicaand send them back to be embedded in the towers facade. Hedge fund Alden Global Capital, one of the country's largest newspaper owners with a reputation for intense cost cuts and layoffs, has offered to buy the local newspaper chain Lee Enterprises for about $141 million. Since Alden's . Hedge fund Alden Global Capital, one of the country's largest newspaper owners with a reputation for intense cost cuts and layoffs, has offered to buy the local newspaper chain Lee Enterprises for . The practical effect of the death of local journalism is that you get what weve had, he told me, which is a halcyon time for corruption and mismanagement and basically misrule.. . Otherwise, youre just peeing in the ocean.. What happens next? "The question is, will local communities decide that this is an important issue, that it's worth saving these newspapers, protecting them from firms like Alden, or will they decide that they don't really care?" But in the meantime, there isn't really anything that can fill the hole these newspapers will leave if they're shut down. Tuesday, 23 November 2021 07:46 PM EST. Those that have survived are smaller, weaker, and more vulnerable to acquisition.
'60 Minutes' correspondent Jon Wertheim on local newspapers - Poynter [10][19][20], The company has its origins in R.D. The New York-based hedge fund Alden Global Capital - known for slashing its newspapers' budgets to extract escalated profits - won shareholder approval Friday for its $633 million bid to acquire the Tribune Publishing newspaper chain.. He used his own money to pull court records, and went years without going on a vacation.
Controversial hedge fund Alden Global wins bidding for Chicago Tribune Hedge fund Alden Global is buying newspaper chain Tribune Publishing . To David Simon, the whimpering end of The Baltimore Sun feels both inevitable and infuriating. ", "Denver Post Rebels Against Its Hedge-Fund Ownership", "Tribune Says Sale to Alden Wins Approval Amid Confusion Over Key Shareholder's Vote", "Lee Enterprises Shares Jump on Takeover Offer From Alden", "The vulture is hungry again: Alden Global Capital wants to buy a few hundred more newspapers", "Colorado Group Pushes to Buy Embattled Denver Post From New York Hedge Fund", "The battle for Tribune: Inside the campaign to find new owners for a legendary group of newspapers", "Is this strip-mining or journalism? It played with my mind a little bit, Glidden told me.
(PDF) Extractive Imperialism in the Americas | henry veltmeyer With aggressive cost-cutting, Alden can operate its newspapers at a profit for years while turning out a steadily worse product, indifferent to the subscribers its alienating. Lee's board of directors . But for Simon, that paper exists entirely in the past. When the Smiths win, they pass on the house and take the cash prize insteada $20,000 haul that Randy will eventually use to seed a small trading firm he calls R.D. The newspaper lost a quarter of its staff to buyouts after it was acquired by Alden Global Capital in May. Freeman was clearly aware of his reputation for ruthlessness, but he seemed to regard Aldens commitment to cost-cutting as a badge of honorthe thing that distinguished him from the saps and cowards who made up Americas previous generation of newspaper owners.
Alden Global Capital seeks to buy Lee Enterprises for $144M He was fired after criticizing Alden in a Washington Post interview.
Hedge fund Alden Global Capital in hunt for big newspaper chain Lee Spend some time around the shell-shocked journalists at the Tribune these days, and youll hear the same question over and over: How did it come to this? Interestingly, Smiths foundation didnt do well with its Alden investments in 2016. Chicago-based Tribune Publishing on Tuesday announced a proposed sale to hedge fund Alden Global Capital in a deal valued at $630 million. One, the warning shot was fired in 2011, in a Poynter Institute article titled Who is investor Randall Smith and why is he buying up newspaper companies? Randall Smith is the co-founder of Alden, together with his young protg, Heath Freeman, and has been called the grandfather of vulture investing. Vulture funds by definition dont reinvest in their properties they suck them dry. 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. For Freeman, newspapers are financial assets and nothing morenumbers to be rearranged on spreadsheets until they produce the maximum returns for investors. about two hundred American newspapers. A quarter of the newsroom (including many big-name reporters, columnists and photographers) took the buyouts Alden offered, and while some great reporters remain on staff, it's nearly impossible for them to fill those gaps, Coppins says.
Daily News spinoff stirs anxiety after Alden takeover - New York Post If they did it right, Venetoulis said, they just might be able to line up a local, civic-minded owner for the paper.
Alden Global Capital makes offer for Lee Enterprises, owner of Winston The new owners had announced a round of buyouts, some beloved staffers were leaving, and those who remained were worried about the future. Aldens website contains no information beyond the firms name, and its list of investors is kept strictly confidential. It was all about the next quarters profit margins, says Matt DeRienzo, who worked as a publisher for Aldens Connecticut newspapers before finally resigning. In 2016 (year of the most recent 990 available), the foundation invested $17 million in Alden funds. Theres no industry that I can think of more integral to a working democracy than the local-news business, he said. City budgets balloon, along with corruption and dysfunction. Shares of Lee Enterprises Inc. rose sharply Monday after hedge fund Alden Global Capital LLC offered to buy the newspaper publisher for about $141 million. and our desire to support local newspapers over the long term." Alden said it wants to work Lee's board of .
Iowa's Lee Enterprises seeks help to fight Alden's takeover bid Alden currently owns 32%. Collectively, they control about one-half of daily newspapers in the U.S. But the group that jumps out to me on the list is the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. [15][16] In March 2018, Margaret Sullivan, the media columnist for The Washington Post, called Alden "one of the most ruthless of the corporate strip-miners seemingly intent on destroying local journalism. But in the case of local news, nothing comparable is ready to replace these papers when they die. Coppins describes Alden as a specific type of firm: a "vulture hedge fund." In early 2011, Alden was still considered a non-controlling investor, but by the end of the year, that would change. To replace a paper like the Sun would require a large, talented staff that covers not just government, but sports and schools and restaurants and art. Baltimore has always had its problems, he told me. As a privately held hedge fund, Alden doesnt have to reveal much to the public. Some have even suggested that this represents Americas last chance to save its local-news industry. For Freeman and his investors to come out ahead, they didnt need to worry about the long-term health of the assetsthey just needed to maximize profits as quickly as possible.
Denver Post reporters vs 'vulture capitalist' hedge fund Alden - CNBC They call Alden a vulture hedge fund, and I think thats honestly a misnomer, Johnson said. Alden Global Capital, the hedge fund that owns the Chicago Tribune and New York Daily News, offered to buy Lee Enterprises Inc. for about $142 million, seeking a larger share of the . He told me it will begin with an annual operating budget of $15 million, unprecedented for an outfit of this kind. Located in the same Manhattan office building as Alden, it funds stem-cell research, health-related charities, arts and culture and Duke University, alma mater of Smiths protg Heath Freeman. Yes, today, it's a newspaper without a newsroom. But when I emailed his studio looking for information, I was informed curtly that the photo was no longer available. Had Smith bought the rights himself? For those who cared about the future of local news, it was hard to imagine a better outcomewhich made it all the more devastating when the bid fell through. What threatens local newspapers now is not just digital disruption or abstract market forces. Last week, Alden Global Capital, the hedge fund notorious for slashing costs at its local titles, came down on the No side of the question, with editorial boards at papers that it owns stating that they will no longer endorse candidates for governor, US senator, or president. So what is this Distressed Opportunities fund? Hedge fund Alden Global Capital, known for making deep newsroom cuts, won approval to acquire Tribune Publishing, which includes the Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun and New York Daily News. 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. Connecting this to the current state of American newspaper ownership seems rather tenuous.. Some expressed exasperation with the staff of the Chicago Tribune, who were unable to find a single interested local buyer. Eventually he was the only news reporter left on staff, charged with covering the citys police, schools, government, courts, hospitals, and businesses. I asked if anyone there at the time was aware of Aldens vulture business strategy. While some finance reporters noted that Smiths newspaper investments were all losing value, none seemed to notice that Smith and Aldens president Heath Freeman would soon start strip mining their news companies real estate and other assets. [33], Alden Global Capital's management of American newspapers has been criticized. Now it might be facing extinction. But even for a group of journalists, it was tough to keep the publics attention. [2] Its managing director is Heath Freeman. , From the February 1905 issue: The confessions of a newspaper woman, The papers union hired a PR firm to launch a public-awareness campaign under the banner Save Our Sun and published a letter calling on the Tribune board to sell the paper to local owners. The papers printing was moved to a plant more than 100 miles outside town, Glidden told me, which meant that the news arriving on subscribers doorsteps each morning was often more than 24 hours old. Several interim executive positions were also filled by people related to Alden or its parent, Smith Management LLC.[23]. Here was one of Americas most storied newspapersa publication that had endorsed Abraham Lincoln and scooped the Treaty of Versailles, that had toppled political bosses and tangled with crooked mayors and collected dozens of Pulitzer Prizesreduced to a newsroom the size of a Chipotle. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. 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. They could be vain, bumbling, even corrupt. 'Sobs, gasps, expletives' over latest Denver Post layoffs", "The Hedge Fund Vampire That Bleeds Newspapers Dry Now Has the Chicago Tribune by the Throat", "How Massive Cuts Have Remade The Denver Post", "Newsonomics: By selling to Americas worst newspaper owners, Michael Ferro ushers the vultures into Tribune", "A Secretive Hedge Fund Is Gutting Newsrooms", "Affiliated Media Files for Bankruptcy to Restructure (Update2)", "The shakeup at MediaNews: Why it could be the leadup to a massive newspaper consolidation", "Alden Global Capital to buy Tribune in deal valued at $630 million", "Lee Enterprises Enacts Poison Pill to Guard Against Alden Takeover", "Lee Enterprises Board Rejects Alden's Acquisition Offer", "Alden Global Capital takes Lee Enterprises to court over failed board nominations", "Alden Global Capital sues Lee Enterprises after rejected takeover bid", "Alden Global Capital loses lawsuit to nominate its slate of candidates for Lee Enterprises' board", "Lee Enterprises shareholders reelect three directors amid hedge fund fight", "Tampa Bay Times sells printing plant to developer for $21 million", "A hedge fund's 'mercenary' strategy: Buy newspapers, slash jobs, sell the buildings", "The hedge fund trying to buy Gannett faces federal probe after investing newspaper workers' pensions in its own funds", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alden_Global_Capital&oldid=1130942589, This page was last edited on 1 January 2023, at 19:27. G ARY MARX and David Jackson, two veteran investigative reporters at the Chicago Tribune, spent most of last year seeking potential buyers who might save their newspaper from Alden Global Capital .
Alden Global to buy Tribune Publishing for $630 million - Los Angeles Times 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. Other large shareholders include Californian asset manager Capital Group and UK fund manager Jupiter Asset Management. He teaches his 8-year-old son, Caleb, to make trades on a Quotron computer, and imparts the value of delayed gratification by reportedly postponing his familys Christmas so that he can use all their available cash to buy stocks at lower prices in December. Meanwhile, in Vallejo, John Glidden went from covering crime and community news to holding the title of the only hard news reporter in town, filling a legal pad with tips he knew he'd never have time to pursue. 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.
Hedge fund Alden Global is buying newspaper chain Tribune Publishing - CNN Am I going to win against capitalism in America?
The Hedge Fund Vampire That Bleeds Newspapers Dry Now Has the Its a hedge that went and bought up some titles that it milks for cash.. Smith & Company, a firm founded by Randall Duncan Smith, initially using the $20,000 cash prize he and his wife won on the 1968-1970 gameshow Dream House. Even as Aldens portfolio grew, Freeman rarely visited his newspapers. He shut down Project Thunderdome, parted ways with Paton, and placed all of Aldens newspapers on the auction block. [22] The appointees to the MediaNews board were replaced by new directors representing the stockholders group led by Alden Global Capital. Two veteran journalists from the Chicago Tribune published an op-ed on Sunday challenging one of the paper's principal owners, the New York hedge fund Alden Global Capital. Well, that wasnt the point. 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. [30], Alden Global Capital includes a real estate division called Twenty Lake Holdings, which primarily buys excess real estate from newspapers.
You can bypass most soft paywalls with a little CSS knowledge About a month after The Baltimore Sun was acquired by Alden, a senior editor at the paper took questions from anxious reporters on Zoom. But this acquisition was profound, making Alden Global . * Edited from 'independent . "[18], Alden received critical coverage from the editorial staff at the Denver Post, who described Alden Global Capital as "vulture capitalists" after multiple staff layoffs. Reinventing their papers could require years of false starts and fine-tuningand, most important, a delayed payday for Aldens investors. I asked. These papers were in many cases left for dead by local families not willing to make the tough but appropriate decisions to get these news organizations to sustainability. For Smith, the Palm Beach conservative and Trump ally, sticking it to the mainstream media might actually be a perk of Aldens strategy. The Denver Post has become the face of this struggle, due to an editorial published in its own pages lashing out against owners, New York-based hedge fund Alden Global Capital. [31], In 2019, Twenty Lake Holdings reported that it had acquired about 180 properties with 2.3 million square feet of real estate in 29 states. By the charitys own accounting, it lost $ 2.3 million in book value on a $17 million investment that year. Alden, which has built a reputation as one of the newspaper industry's most aggressive cost-cutters, became Tribune Publishing's largest shareholder in November 2019 and owns a 31.3% stake. On . For Baltimore to avoid a similar fate, Simon told me, something new would have to come alonga spiritual heir to the Sun: A newspaper is its contents and the people who make it. Its being snuffed out, quarter after quarter after quarter. We were sitting in a coffee shop in Logan Square, and he was still struggling to make sense of what had happened. but sadly on a global scale there is hardly any independent news sources left currently. If you went into a lab to create the perfect bro, Heath would be that creation, says one former executive at an Alden-owned company, who, like others in this story, requested anonymity to speak candidly. Who Profits From Alden Global Capital? By McKay Coppins. In the Hyatt meeting, Ted Venetoulis, a former Baltimore politician, advised the reporters to pick a noisy public fight: Set up a war room, circulate petitions, hold events to rally the city against Alden. In February 2021, he announced a handshake deal to buy the Sun from Alden for $65 million once it acquired Tribune Publishing. Instead, the money was used to finance the hedge funds other ventures. Smith, a reclusive Palm Beach septuagenarian, hasnt granted a press interview since the 1980s. These included several Cayman Island-based funds and another profiting from Greek debt stemming from that countrys financial crisis.
Hedge fund reaches $630m deal to buy remaining Tribune Publishing Alden Global Looks to Buy Newspaper Publisher Lee Enterprises The editor in chief mysteriously resigned, and managers scrambled to deal with the cuts. If you want to know what its like when Alden Capital buys your local newspaper, you could look to Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, where coverage of local elections in more than a dozen communities falls to a single reporter working out of his attic and emailing questionnaires to candidates. Hedge fund Alden Global Capital will acquire the rest of what it does not already own of Tribune Publishing, owner of the Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News and other local newspapers . When The New York Times profiles him in 1991, it notes that he excels at profiting from other peoples misery and quotes a parade of disgruntled clients and partners. The specific shareholder rights plan adopted by the Lee board forbids Alden from purchasing more than 10% of the company, and will be in force for one year. 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.
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