[30], Alden Global Capital includes a real estate division called Twenty Lake Holdings, which primarily buys excess real estate from newspapers. Senior lenders under the deal were to swap debt for stock. Freemans father, Brian, was a successful investment banker who specialized in making deals on behalf of labor unions. I asked. "60 Minutes" correspondent Jon Wertheim did a strong piece that aired Sunday night about the grim state of local newspapers, in part because of how hedge funds, such as Alden Global Capital . I asked Knight about those investments and whether the Foundations officers had any regrets, knowing what we now do about Aldens devastating effect on its own newspapers. 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. Instead, they gutted the place. 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. '60 Minutes' correspondent Jon Wertheim on local newspapers - Poynter Alden is known for . 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. In May, the Tribune was acquired by Alden Global Capital, a secretive hedge fund that has quickly, and with remarkable ease, become one of the largest newspaper operators in the country. So who is investing with them? [2] [3] By mid-2020, Alden had stakes in roughly two hundred American newspapers. 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.. Connecting this to the current state of American newspaper ownership seems rather tenuous.. It seemed reasonable to ask that they answer a few questions. It's traded in a prestigious downtown newsroom for a "Chipotle-sized office" near the printing press. The Tribune Tower rises above the streets of downtown Chicago in a majestic snarl of . When a reporter asked if their work was still valued, the editor sounded deflated. 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 . We were in collective revolt, Lillian Reed, a Sun reporter who helped organize the campaign, told me. Other records turned up from public pension funds and filings of publicly traded companies. I put the question to Freeman, but he declined to answer on the record. Heath Freeman in an undated photo provided by Goldin Solutions . That gave the journalists at the Sun a brief window to stop the sale from going through. He said that he still appreciated their journalism, but that he couldnt speak for his corporate bosses. The bid by Alden Global Capital, which already owns about 200 local newspapers, had faced resistance from Tribune staff and last-ditch competition. The new owners did not fly to Chicago to address the staff, nor did they bother with paeans to the vital civic role of journalism. Three days later, Bainumstill smarting from his experience with Alden, but worried about the Suns fatesent a pride-swallowing email to Freeman. My answer is its hard to know. Iowa's Lee Enterprises seeks help to fight Alden's takeover bid That may well be the future of local news, he says. Frustrated and worn out, Glidden broke down one day last spring when a reporter from The Washington Post called. 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. With full control of Tribune Publishing, Alden Global Capital is scrambling to squeeze out a return on its $600 million investment in the struggling Chicago-based newspaper company. "[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. 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 . Denver Post reporters vs 'vulture capitalist' hedge fund Alden - CNBC Longtime Tribune staffers had seen their share of bad corporate overlords, but this felt more calculated, more sinister. [14], Alden has a reputation for sharply cutting costs by reducing the number of journalists working on its newspapers. At one point, I tracked down the photographer whod taken the only existing picture of Smith on the internet. NPR's A Martnez talks to McKay Coppins of The Atlantic about how a hedge fund, Alden Global Capital, is buying and then gutting newspapers and the implications for democracy. Bainum told me hed come to appreciate local journalism in the 1970s while serving in the Maryland state legislature. In Orlando, the Sentinel ran an editorial pleading with the community to deliver us from Alden and comparing the hedge fund to a biblical plague of locusts. In Allentown, Pennsylvania, reporters held reader forums where they tried to instill a sense of urgency about the threat Alden posed to The Morning Call. It makes me profoundly sad to think about what the Trib was, what it is, and what its likely to become, says David Axelrod, who was a reporter at the paper before becoming an adviser to Barack Obama. [7][8] Alden's purchase price was $635 million, or $17.25 per share. The audio for this interview was produced by Ryan Benk and edited by Scott Saloway. But a sense of fatalism permeated the work. What exactly went wrong would become a point of bitter debate among the journalists involved in the campaigns. Otherwise, youre just peeing in the ocean.. Earnest and unpolished, with a perpetually mussed mop of hair, Bainum presented himself as a contrast to the cutthroat capitalists at Alden. Misinformation proliferates. I felt like a terrible reporter because I couldnt get to everything.. Financially, it was a raw deal. "A lot of cities almost operate with the assumption that there will be at least one local newspaper, in some cases several local newspapers, acting as a check on the authorities," he says. But years later, when Randy relocates to Palm Beach and becomes a major donor to Donald Trumps presidential campaign, it will make a certain amount of sense that his earliest known media investment was conceived as a giant middle finger to the journalistic establishment. [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. For Smith, the Palm Beach conservative and Trump ally, sticking it to the mainstream media might actually be a perk of Aldens strategy. Lee blocks Alden Global Capital move for more board control - STLPR (Freeman denied this through a spokesperson.) What Alden's potential acquisition of Lee Enterprises means for 20-plus And when Chicago suffered a brutal summer crime wave, the paper had no one on the night shift to listen to the police scanner. Freeman was only slightly more accessible. 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. Theyre being targeted by investors who have figured out how to get rich by strip-mining local-news outfits. But beneath all the recriminations and infighting was a cruel reality: When faced with the likely decimation of the countrys largest local newspapers, most Americans didnt seem to care very much. But I had underestimated how little Aldens founders care about their standing in the journalism world. As the months passed, things kept getting worse. 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 . Before our interview, Id contacted a number of Aldens reporters to find out what they would ask their boss if they ever had the chance. Media . They want to know who exactly profits when we learn, as Harvard Nieman Lab's Ken Doctor recently reported, that the firm netted $160 million last year from its Digital First Media . How do you know who wins? the boy asks. After congratulating him on closing the deal, Bainum said he was still interested in buying the Sun if Alden was willing to negotiate. Theres no industry that I can think of more integral to a working democracy than the local-news business, he said. Alden Global Capital makes an offer for Lee Enterprises, a big 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.. 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. But while its true that Alden entered the industry by purchasing floundering newspapers, not all of them were necessarily doomed to liquidation. Why Chicago Tribune Staffers Are Terrified Of Their Hedge Fund - Forbes Hedge Fund Alden in Hunt for Another Big Newspaper Chain and our desire to support local newspapers over the long term." Alden said it wants to work Lee's board of . This was the core of Freemans argument. NY Daily News owner Alden sues Lee after publisher rejects takeover bid At the time, the Sun had a bustling bureau in Annapolis, and he marveled at the reporters ability to sort the honest politicians from the political whores by exposing abuses of power. Hellman and BNP together own 46.4 per cent of Allfunds' shares. 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. Alden Global to buy Tribune Publishing for $630 million - Los Angeles Times Reinventing their papers could require years of false starts and fine-tuningand, most important, a delayed payday for Aldens investors. So far, Alden has limited its closures primarily to weekly newspapers, but Doctor argues its only a matter of time before the firm starts shutting down its dailies as well. Hes impressed by their journalism, he told me, but his clearest takeaway is that theyre not nearly well funded enough. Newspapers Have Been Struggling And Then Came The Pandemic - Forbes 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. They call Alden a vulture hedge fund, and I think thats honestly a misnomer, Johnson said. Lee, which owns the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the Omaha World-Herald and many other daily newspapers throughout the region, is staving off a takeover attempt by Alden Global Capital, a New-York . Even as Aldens portfolio grew, Freeman rarely visited his newspapers. He stops talking to the press, refuses to be photographed, and rarely appears in public. By the charitys own accounting, it lost $ 2.3 million in book value on a $17 million investment that year. [33], Alden Global Capital's management of American newspapers has been criticized. Tuesday, 23 November 2021 07:46 PM EST. 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. [10][19][20], The company has its origins in R.D. "Local newspaper brands and operations are the engines that power trusted local news in communities across the United States," Heath Freeman, president of Alden Global Capital, said in a . "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?" In budget meetings, according to the former executive, Freeman hectored local publishers, demanding that they produce detailed numbers off the top of their head and then humiliating them when they couldnt. The new owners had announced a round of buyouts, some beloved staffers were leaving, and those who remained were worried about the future. Knight first reported its investment in Alden in 2010, noting the fair market value of its Alden holdings was $13.4 million. But he has a big idea: He believes theres serious money to be made in buying troubled companies, steering them into bankruptcy, and then selling them off in parts. (Freeman has, in the past, disputed Bainums account of the negotiations.) Hedge fund Alden in hunt for another big newspaper chain - WKMG Newspapers Affect Us, Often In Ways We Don't Realize, 'Project Mayhem': Reporters Race To Save Tribune Papers From 'Vulture' Fund. 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.. The rationale offered by the board was, Consistent with its fiduciary duties, Lees Board has taken this action to ensure our shareholders receive fair treatment, full transparency and protection in connection with Aldens unsolicited proposal to acquire Lee. In early 2011, Alden was still considered a non-controlling investor, but by the end of the year, that would change. Alden Global Capital already owns 200 publications and a 6% stake in Lee Enterprises. He started as a general-assignment reporter, covering local crime and community events. In its bid to acquire Tribune Publishing, the hedge fund Alden Global Capital vowed to provide $375 million in cash to the owner of the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun and other titles a . [4][5] The company added more newspapers to its portfolio in May 2021 when it purchased Tribune Publishing and became the second-largest newspaper publisher in the United States. Tribune Publishing last month approved a $630m takeover deal with Alden Global Capital. The term vulture capitalism hasnt been invented yet, but Randy will come to be known as a pioneer in the field. The pitch had a certain romantic appeal to the reporters in the room. 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. Already the largest shareholder . | Michael Gray, WIkimedia Commons. On Monday, Dail You can bypass most soft paywalls with a little CSS knowledge Alden is not a newspaper company, says Ann Marie Lipinski, a former editor in chief of the Chicago Tribune. Alden, a New York City-based firm that has become the grim reaper of American newspapers, had recently increased its stake in Tribune Publishing to 32%making it the largest shareholder of the . 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. If Knights total divestment from Alden in 2014 was because someone made an ethical decision to stop dealing with the vulture fund, good for them. The newspaper lost a quarter of its staff to buyouts after it was acquired by Alden Global Capital in May. This summer, Alden Global Capital acquired Tribune Publishing and its titles, from small community newspapers to major metro titles like its flagship, The Chicago Tribune, and The Baltimore Sun. Margaret Sullivan: The Constitution doesnt work without local news. [8][24] Tribune Publishing publishes nine major metropolitan dailies. I would know he didnt mean it, and he would know he didnt mean it, but he would at least go through the motions. The newspaper lost a quarter of its staff to buyouts after it was acquired by Alden Global Capital in May. All good works, and Knight is to be commended for them. In February 2021, he announced a handshake deal to buy the Sun from Alden for $65 million once it acquired Tribune Publishing. 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. 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. 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. Alden Global Capital is a hedge fund based in Manhattan, New York City. 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. Maybe theyd cancel their subscriptions eventually; maybe the papers would fold altogether. The endorsement debate swings around again - Columbia Journalism Review Controversial hedge fund Alden Global wins bidding for Chicago Tribune 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, in a . But the group that jumps out to me on the list is the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Aldens website contains no information beyond the firms name, and its list of investors is kept strictly confidential. 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. 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. The best architects of the era were invited to submit designs; lofty quotes about the Fourth Estate were selected to adorn the lobby. If accepted, the $24 per share purchase price would . Eventually he was the only news reporter left on staff, charged with covering the citys police, schools, government, courts, hospitals, and businesses. Nov. 22, 2021. In the past 15 years, more than a quarter of American newspapers have gone out of business. Plus how Facebook is a hostile foreign power, the engineers daughter, the collapse of music genres, Dostoyevsky, W. G. Sebald, nasty return logistics, and more. And two, by at least 2013, those of us who worked at Alden-controlled papers (like me) were already experiencing the slashing and burning. Rapid-fire changes underway at newspapers sold to cost-slashing hedge fund Alden Global Capital have led to a profound case of the jitters at newsrooms like the New York Daily News. Joe Pompeo pilloried Alden in Vanity Fair for reducing newsrooms. 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. Dec 9, 2021. Alden Global Capital already had a 32% stake in Tribune Publishing, which owns famous names like the Tribune, Daily News, the Hartford Courant and others, and on Tuesday announced it would pay . My request for an interview with Smith was dismissed by his spokesperson before I finished asking. 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.
Aggravated Assault Mississippi,
Claudia Williams Journalist,
Signs She Is Lying About Paternity,
Articles W
