what newspapers does alden global capital own

The families that used to own the bulk of Americas local newspapersthe Bonfilses of Denver, the Chandlers of Los Angeleswere never perfect stewards. Now he was feeling the effects of their management. Freeman was more animated when he turned to the prospect of extracting money from Big Tech. But outside the industry, few seemed to notice. Most of his investments are defined by a cold pragmatism, but he takes a more personal interest in the media sector. 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. Baltimore has always had its problems, he told me. 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. "[26] Shortly thereafter, Alden Global, through its operating unit Strategic Investment Opportunities, filed a lawsuit in state court in Delaware against Lee Enterprises. I asked if anyone there at the time was aware of Aldens vulture business strategy. he asks. 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. A native of Vallejo, he was proud to work for his hometown paper. 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. 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 . Heath hopes the well never runs dry, but hes going to keep pumping until it does. But that would require slow, painstaking workand there are easier ways to make money. They had a father-figure relationship, one told me. 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. When the Chicago Tribune held a Save Local News rally, most of the people who showed up were members of the media. Baltimore is an underdog town, Liz Bowie, a Sun reporter who was at the meeting, told me. 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. 'Vulture' Fund Alden Global, Known For Slashing Newsrooms, Buys Tribune Papers, Stop The Presses! With his own money, he helps his brother launch the New York Press, a free alt-weekly in Manhattan. AP. At the Pioneer Press , where its staff is down to 60, the paper produced a . It financed the deal with the help of Cerberusa private-equity firm that owned, among other businesses, the security company that trained Saudi operatives who participated in the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Other records turned up from public pension funds and filings of publicly traded companies. Alden Global Capital swallowed all of the Tribune's newspapers, including the New York Daily News, earlier in 2021. Alden, which already owned one-third of . The question was how. "[34], In October 2021, The Atlantic examined the impact of Alden's acquisition of the Chicago Tribune, noting that, "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. These were not exactly boom times for newspapers, after allat least someone wanted to buy them. The Tribune Tower rises above the streets of downtown Chicago in a majestic snarl of Gothic spires and flying buttresses that were designed to exude power and prestige. Heath Freeman in an undated photo provided by Goldin Solutions . "[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. I asked. It was like watching a slow-motion disaster, says Gregory Pratt, a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. Interestingly, Smiths foundation didnt do well with its Alden investments in 2016. Im worried the worst is yet to come. We dont hear from them Theyre, like, nameless, faceless people., In the months that followed, the Sun did not immediately experience the same deep staff cuts that other papers did. ), Crucially, the profits generated by Aldens newspapers did not go toward rebuilding newsrooms. Today, we know that Knight, CalPERS and others no longer invest with Alden. Next up: Chicago, Baltimore, and the New York Daily News. Some in the industry say they wouldnt be surprised if Smith and Freeman end up becoming the biggest newspaper moguls in U.S. history. But there are some clues here and there. The men killing Americas newspapers, how Slack upended the workplace, and the new meth. This was the core of Freemans argument. Alden Global Capital is a hedge fund based in Manhattan, New York City. . It was all about the next quarters profit margins, says Matt DeRienzo, who worked as a publisher for Aldens Connecticut newspapers before finally resigning. Meanwhile, reporters fanned out across their respective cities in search of benevolent rich people to buy their newspapers. When Alden first got into the news business, Freeman seemed willing to indulge some innovation. Updated May 21, 2021 at 2:13 PM ET. It has figured out how to make a profit by driving newspapers into the ground, he says, since Alden's aim is not to make them into long-term sustainable businesses but rather maximize profits quickly to show it has made a winning investment. He stops talking to the press, refuses to be photographed, and rarely appears in public. Otherwise, youre just peeing in the ocean.. Instead, the money was used to finance the hedge funds other ventures. If they did it right, Venetoulis said, they just might be able to line up a local, civic-minded owner for the paper. In May, The Alden Global Capital a hedge fund, acquired Tribune Publishing TPCO for $633 million. Over the course of seven years, Alden doubled profits in its Bay Area News Group newspapers, another home to cutbacks. After weeks of back-and-forth, he agreed to a phone call, but only if parts of the conversation could be on background (which is to say, I could use the information generally but not attribute it to him). | Michael Gray, WIkimedia Commons. 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 . Of course, its easy to romanticize past eras of journalism. She was writing about Aldens growing newspaper empire, and wanted to know what it was like to be the last news reporter in town. Feeling burned by the hedge fund, Bainum decided to make a last-minute bid for all of Tribune Publishings newspapers, pledging to line up responsible buyers in each market. . Reading these stories now has a certain horror-movie quality: You want to somehow warn the unwitting victims of whats about to happen. 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 . But it turned out that Smith had so many doorsteps16 mansions in Palm Beach alone, as of a few years ago, some of them behind gatesthat the plan proved impractical. When plans for the building were announced in 1922, Colonel Robert R. McCormick, the longtime owner of the Chicago Tribune, said he wanted to erect the worlds most beautiful office building for his beloved newspaper. Aldens website contains no information beyond the firms name, and its list of investors is kept strictly confidential. "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?" The pay was terrible and the work was not glamorous, but Glidden loved his job. By the time the FBI caught them, in 2017, the conspiracy had resulted in one dead civilian and a rash of wrongful arrests and convictions. It felt important. California biotech billionaire and Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, who owns 24%, When Simon called me, he was on the set of his new miniseries, We Own This City, which tells the true story of Baltimore cops who spent years running their own drug ring from inside the police department. But in the case of local news, nothing comparable is ready to replace these papers when they die. Inside Alden Global Capital. [12] Lee owns daily newspapers in 77 markets in 26 states, and about 350 weekly and specialty publications. Tribune Publishing, publisher of the Chicago Tribune and other major newspapers, has agreed to be acquired by Alden Global Capital in a deal valued at $630 million . This is predatory.. Layout design was outsourced to freelancers in the Philippines. Hedge fund Alden Global Capital is attempting to acquire Davenport-based Lee Enterprises, one of the country's largest newspaper chains, in all the markings of a hostile takeover. After serving in the Carter administrations Treasury Department, Brian became widely knownand fearedin the 80s for his hard-line negotiating style. . According to its 990s, Knight ended up making $185,000 over five years on its initial $13.4 million investment. Misinformation proliferates. 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. 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." 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. A young man named Randall Duncan SmithRandy for shortstands next to his wife, Kathryn, answering quick-fire trivia questions in front of a live studio audience. Am I going to win against capitalism in America? But I had underestimated how little Aldens founders care about their standing in the journalism world. Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you . Theres no industry that I can think of more integral to a working democracy than the local-news business, he said. "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 . It . It will rely initially on philanthropic donations, but he aims to sell enough subscriptions to make it self-sustaining within five years. Yes, today, it's a newspaper without a newsroom. One known investor, however, is the Randall and Barbara Smith Foundation, named for Alden founder Smith and his wife. 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 . 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. This story originally appeared on the Morning Edition live blog. In a press release Monday, Nov. 22, 2021 Alden said it sent Lee's board a letter with the offer. * Edited from 'independent . 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. To David Simon, the whimpering end of The Baltimore Sun feels both inevitable and infuriating. 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. 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. If you're a reader of local newspapers particularly the Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun or New York Daily News you're going to want to make sure the answer is yes. Glidden had heard rumblings about the papers owners when he first took the job, but he hadnt paid much attention. Unless the Tribunes trajectory changes, Chicago may soon provide a grim case study. To find the papers current headquarters one afternoon in late June, I took a cab across town to an industrial block west of the river. MNG Enterprises, Inc., doing business as Digital First Media and MediaNews Group, is a Denver, Colorado -based newspaper publisher owned by Alden Global Capital. Year after year, the executives from Alden would order new budget cuts, and Glidden would end up with fewer co-workers and more work. But by 2014, it was becoming clear to Aldens executives that Patons approach would be difficult to monetize in the short term, according to people familiar with the firms thinking. And when Chicago suffered a brutal summer crime wave, the paper had no one on the night shift to listen to the police scanner. Its a game, Randy explains to his son. But as an organization that believes that quality information is essential for individuals and communities to make their own bestchoices, it was disappointing that the foundation couldnt simply own up to its error in judgment when it came to Alden. Meanwhile, with few newsroom jobs left to eliminate, Alden continued to find creative ways to cut costs. Alden is known for . 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. The newspaper lost a quarter of its staff to buyouts after it was acquired by Alden Global Capital in May. After a long walk down a windowless hallway lined with cinder-block walls, I got in an elevator, which deposited me near a modest bank of desks near the printing press. My answer is its hard to know. 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. Alden Global Capital already owns 200 publications and a 6% stake in Lee Enterprises. Another ex-publisher told me Freeman believed that local newspapers should be treated like any other commodity in an extractive business. The Banner will launch with about 50 journalistsnot far from the size of the Sunand an ambitious mandate.