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. Instead, the money was used to finance the hedge funds other ventures. Alden gradually took control of the papers that would become DFM. With its acquisition of Tribune Publishing earlier this year, Alden now controls more than 200 newspapers, including some of the countrys most famous and influential: the Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, the New York Daily News. It was founded in 2007 by Randall D. These were not exactly boom times for newspapers, after allat least someone wanted to buy them. Coppins offers several examples, like the Chicago Tribune and California's Vallejo Times-Herald. Hedge fund Alden Global is buying newspaper chain Tribune Publishing About a month after The Baltimore Sun was acquired by Alden, a senior editor at the paper took questions from anxious reporters on Zoom. [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. 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. Probably not.. But for that to happen, the Big Tech money would need to flow to underfunded newsrooms, not into the pockets of Aldens investors. The hollowing-out of the Chicago Tribune was noted in the national press, of course. In February 2021, he announced a handshake deal to buy the Sun from Alden for $65 million once it acquired Tribune Publishing. The question was how. Theyre being targeted by investors who have figured out how to get rich by strip-mining local-news outfits. How Alden Global Capital will make money owning Tribune Publishing 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, 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. Is this company saving newspapers or profiting from their demise? - The Have you heard of the hedge fund Alden Global Capital? 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. To him, its the same as oil, the publisher said. This is a subscription-based business.. Hedge fund Alden Global is buying newspaper chain Tribune Publishing - CNN To industry observers, Aldens brazen model set it apart even from chains like Gannett, known for its aggressive cost-cutting. The company has been growing its portfolio and as of May 2021, owns over 100 newspapers and 200 assorted other publications. Hedge fund Alden's bid to buy Chicago Tribune, other papers approved by When the journalists created a Slack channel to coordinate their efforts across multiple newspapers, they dubbed it Project Mayhem.. He shut down Project Thunderdome, parted ways with Paton, and placed all of Aldens newspapers on the auction block. Iowa's Lee Enterprises seeks help to fight Alden's takeover bid On Monday, Dail So who is investing with them? And everyone knows its going to run dry.. For a fleeting moment, Aldens newspapers became unexpected darlings of the journalism industrywritten about by Poynter and Nieman Lab, endorsed by academics like Jay Rosen and Jeff Jarvis. But there was still a sliver of hope: Tribune and Alden agreed that the hedge fund would not increase its stake in the company for at least seven months. But whats happening in Chicago is different. How this 'vulture' hedge fund's gutting of local newsrooms could hurt On . But Glidden felt sure he knew the real reason: Alden wanted him gone. Morale tanked; reporters burned out. Smith, a reclusive Palm Beach septuagenarian, hasnt granted a press interview since the 1980s. When Alden first got into the news business, Freeman seemed willing to indulge some innovation. 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 . It was like watching a slow-motion disaster, says Gregory Pratt, a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. For Freeman, newspapers are financial assets and nothing morenumbers to be rearranged on spreadsheets until they produce the maximum returns for investors. But the group that jumps out to me on the list is the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. 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. It was founded in 2007 by Randall D. Smith. One researcher tells me that if that money were invested in the S&P 500 Index Fund, it would have earned roughly $11 million over the same period. Eventually he was the only news reporter left on staff, charged with covering the citys police, schools, government, courts, hospitals, and businesses. "[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. 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. Freeman, meanwhile, would later gloat to colleagues that Bainum was never serious about buying the newspapers and just wanted to bask in the worshipful media coverage his bid generated. So why be surprised that Knight-Ridder or anyone else is investing in destructive but profitable ventures? Now he was feeling the effects of their management. 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 . Chicago-based Tribune Publishing on Tuesday announced a proposed sale to hedge fund Alden Global Capital in a deal valued at $630 million. Alden Global Capital pushes to reshape Lee Enterprises board Year after year, the executives from Alden would order new budget cuts, and Glidden would end up with fewer co-workers and more work. 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. The new owners had announced a round of buyouts, some beloved staffers were leaving, and those who remained were worried about the future. Some of these papers likely would have been liquidated if the fund had not stepped in to buy them, as Alden's president told Coppins. But that's not true for all of them. This is the story weve been telling for decades about the dying local-news industry, and its not without truth. Instead, they gutted the place. I asked, What is the Foundations perspective on those investments now, as news of Aldens gutting of these newspapers has come to light?. Who Profits From Alden Global Capital? This Is How a Newspaper Dies - POLITICO Magazine "[26] Shortly thereafter, Alden Global, through its operating unit Strategic Investment Opportunities, filed a lawsuit in state court in Delaware against Lee Enterprises. The $633 million sale made Alden the nation's second largest newspaper owner in terms of circulation, with more than 200 newspapers. "[17] and Vanity Fair dubbed Alden the "grim reaper of American newspapers. I asked. The shows premise pits two couples against each other for the chance to win a home. 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. On the appointed afternoon, I dialed the number provided by his spokesperson and found myself talking to the most feared man in American newspapers. 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. 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. Somehow, no one's buying it. Clearly, for Smith and Freeman, chop-shopping their newspapers paid off. '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. That may well be the future of local news, he says. [2] Its managing director is Heath Freeman. Some expressed exasperation with the staff of the Chicago Tribune, who were unable to find a single interested local buyer. but sadly on a global scale there is hardly any independent news sources left currently. . 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. Lee Enterprises holds off an Alden takeoverfor now How do you know who wins? the boy asks. NPR reached out to Alden for a response. Im repulsed by the incestuous world of New York journalism, he tells New York magazine. Alden completed its takeover of the Tribune papers in May. It has not, however, retained the Chicago Tribune. Alden Global Capital had recently purchased a nearly one-third stake in the Suns parent company, Tribune Publishing, and the firm was signaling that it would soon come for the rest. Hedge fund Alden's bid for owner of Virginian-Pilot, Daily Press From the March 1914 issue: H. L. Mencken on newspaper morals, A story circulated throughout the companypossibly apocryphal, though no one could say for surethat when Freeman was informed that The Denver Post had won a Pulitzer in 2013, his first response was: Does that come with any money?. Heath hopes the well never runs dry, but hes going to keep pumping until it does. 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. A native of Vallejo, he was proud to work for his hometown paper. . That might sound like a losing formula, but these papers dont have to become sustainable businesses for Smith and Freeman to make money. Margaret Sullivan: The Constitution doesnt work without local news. "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?" He was fired after criticizing Alden in a Washington Post interview. 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.. Hellman and BNP together own 46.4 per cent of Allfunds' shares. When a reporter asked if their work was still valued, the editor sounded deflated. To be sure, the Knight Foundation does much to help promote and sustain 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 . In addition to the constant layoffs, our buildings were being sold, basic office supplies became scarce and the hot water stopped working. Meet the Hedge Fund Boss Who Just Bought Tribune's Newspapers Its the meanness and the elegance of the capitalist marketplace brought to newspapers, Doctor told me. It's newspaper-endorsement season again, and that means it's Should newspapers do endorsements?season again. Hedge Fund Alden in Hunt for Another Big Newspaper Chain