about two hundred American newspapers. He shut down Project Thunderdome, parted ways with Paton, and placed all of Aldens newspapers on the auction block. Freemans father, Brian, was a successful investment banker who specialized in making deals on behalf of labor unions. he asks. Soon, Tribune-owned newsrooms across the country were kicking off similar campaigns. Like many alumni of the Sun, Simon is steeped in the papers history. When lawmakers pressed for details last year on who funds Alden, the company replied that there may be certain legal entities and organizational structures formed outside of the United States.. Many in the journalism industry, watching lawsuits play out in Australia and Europe, have held out hope in recent years that Google and Facebook will be compelled to share their advertising revenue with the local outlets whose content populates their platforms. A vulture doesnt hold a wounded animals head underwater. So I was more than a little shocked to learn that, according to its tax filings, Knight had invested $13 million with Aldens Distressed Opportunities Fund by 2010 and kept investing through 2014. Pioneer Press owner buys 11 more Minnesota papers - Star Tribune He took particular pride in finding novel ways to give away his family fortune, funding child-poverty initiatives in Baltimore and prenatal care for women in Liberia. Inside Alden Global Capital. The details of how Smith got to know him are opaque, but the resulting loyalty was evident. 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. This is the story weve been telling for decades about the dying local-news industry, and its not without truth. Bainum envisioned rebuilding the paperwhich, by 2020, was down to a single full-time statehouse reporteras a nonprofit. (Freeman denied this through a spokesperson.) 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 . When Alden first started buying newspapers, at the tail end of the Great Recession, the industry responded with cautious optimism. Well, that wasnt the point. But he couldnt help feeling that the police scandal would have been exposed much sooner if the Sun were operating at full force. 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 . Feb. 16, 2021 8:04 PM PT. Hedge fund Alden Global is buying newspaper chain Tribune Publishing But whats happening in Chicago is different. Glidden, then a mild-mannered 30-year-old, had come to journalism later in life than most and was eager to prove himself. Hedge fund Alden's bid to buy Chicago Tribune, other papers approved by It's a tangled tale but essentially Asylum produced a film for the McDonald's charitable foundation for Leo. "[21], shareholder rights plan, colloquially known as a "poison pill", "Alden Global Capital LLC NEW YORK , NY", "Company Overview of Alden Global Capital LLC", "Heath Freeman of Alden Global Capital says he wants to save local news. At the time, finalternatives.com reported that the Global Distress Opportunities fund would focus on financial firms as well as homebuilding, gaming and auto-related names.. It was like watching a slow-motion disaster, says Gregory Pratt, a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. What happens next? Alden Launches $142 Million Bid for Publisher Lee Enterprises 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. [2][3] By mid-2020, Alden had stakes in roughly two hundred American newspapers. . At one point, he told me, the citys entire civil-service commission was abruptly fired without explanation; his sources told him something fishy was going on, but he knew hed never be able to run down the story. 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. At the time, even savvy media insiders like Martin Langeveld wistfully predicted Alden would keep newspapers future in mind: Smith knows that the only way to win his big bet on the future of newspapers is to turn them into nimble, modern digital news enterprises.. 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. In the past 15 years, more than a quarter of American newspapers have gone out of business. The California Public Employees Retirement System, a few European banks, and Citigroup and Coca Cola Companys pension funds have all invested in Alden, along with charities such as the Circle of Service Foundation and the Alfred University Endowment. But for all the theatrics, his marching orders were always the same: Cut more. Alden gradually took control of the papers that would become DFM. Ken Kelleher - Creative Director / Artist - LinkedIn They could be vain, bumbling, even corrupt. But this acquisition was profound, making Alden Global . City budgets balloon, along with corruption and dysfunction. [33], Alden Global Capital's management of American newspapers has been criticized. But we dont know, because they arent saying. Lee Enterprises rejects Alden Global Capital's unsolicited proposal [4], In 2019, Alden attempted, but failed at, a hostile takeover of Gannett. [21], Under the acquisition plan, MediaNews Group debt fell to $165 million from about $930 million. The final product, completed in 1925, was an architectural spectacle unlike anything the city had seen beforeromance in stone and steel, as one writer described it. The shows premise pits two couples against each other for the chance to win a home. Clearly, for Smith and Freeman, chop-shopping their newspapers paid off. Alden-owned newspapers have cut their staff at twice the rate of their competitors, for all of Tribune Publishings newspapers, security company that trained Saudi operatives. Three days later, Bainumstill smarting from his experience with Alden, but worried about the Suns fatesent a pride-swallowing email to Freeman. 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. It's newspaper-endorsement season again, and that means it's Should newspapers do endorsements?season again. Since they bought their first newspapers a decade ago, no one has been more mercenary or less interested in pretending to care about their publications long-term health. Two days after the deal was finalized, Alden announced an aggressive round of buyouts. By that point, Alden was widely known as the grim reaper of American newspapers, as Vanity Fair had put it, and news of the acquisition plans had unleashed a wave of panic across the industry. This was the core of Freemans argument. [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. It has filed a lawsuit in its bid to buy out news publisher Lee Enterprises. The men killing Americas newspapers, how Slack upended the workplace, and the new meth. 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. Or to nearby Monterey, where the former Herald reporter Julie Reynolds says staffers were pushed to stop writing investigative features so they could produce multiple stories a day. He can cite decades-old scoops and tell you whom they pissed off. One conclusions even these reporters are hesitant to make is that we are all dealing within a capitalist system which has none, or few, principles to guide itself, apart from making a profit, no matter how. In my many conversations with people who have worked with Freeman, not one could recall seeing him read a newspaper. Opinions - Help yourself. Is it ever okay to nick an idea? Have you heard of the hedge fund Alden Global Capital? Alden Global Capital, the hedge fund that owns The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press in Virginia, has proposed purchasing Lee Enterprises, the Iowa-based owner of the Richmond Times-Dispatch and most other major Virginia newspapers, for approximately $144 million, Alden announced Monday. [27] The Alden lawsuit asserts that the members of the Lee board "have every reason to maintain the status quo and their lucrative corporate positions" and that they are "focused more on [their] own power than what's best for the company. But even for a group of journalists, it was tough to keep the publics attention. He wrote, "Alden Global Capital has eliminated the jobs of scores of reporters and editors, and decimated journalism in cities all over the country: Denver, Boston, San Jose, Trenton, etc. Alden began its acquisition of Tribune Publishing in 2019, when they paid $117.9 million to Michael Ferro for his 25.2-percent stake. Alden Global Capital seeks to buy Lee Enterprises for $144M Iowa's Lee Enterprises seeks help to fight Alden's takeover bid It seemed reasonable to ask that they answer a few questions. hide caption. 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. Hedge fund Alden Global Capital in hunt for big newspaper chain Lee Controversial hedge fund Alden Global wins bidding for Chicago Tribune