Russ Smith is a puckish libertarian whose self-described contempt for the journalistic class animates the pages of the publication. 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. 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. He told me it will begin with an annual operating budget of $15 million, unprecedented for an outfit of this kind. But that's not true for all of them. qhhsubiquity.com Informacin detallada del sitio web y la empresa Iowa-based Lee Enterprises asks investors to help fight off hedge fund Alden Global Capital. Local newsrooms strained by budget-slashing financial firms But the group that jumps out to me on the list is the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Traditional newspaper business model says you make 95% of your money off ad sales and the rest off subscriptions. 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.. 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 . 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. About a month after The Baltimore Sun was acquired by Alden, a senior editor at the paper took questions from anxious reporters on Zoom. Opinions - Help yourself. Is it ever okay to nick an idea? He gained 100 pounds and started grinding his teeth at night. Another ex-publisher told me Freeman believed that local newspapers should be treated like any other commodity in an extractive business. It is a subsidiary of Alden Global Capital, the New York City hedge fund that backed the purchase of and dramatic cost-cutting at more than 100 newspapers causing more than 1,000 lost jobs. "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?" "[25], In early December, the board of Lee unanimously rejected the Alden bid, saying that the Alden proposal "grossly undervalues Lee and fails to recognize the strength of our business today. It was founded in 2007 by Randall D. A century later, the Tribune Tower has retained its grandeur. Freemans father, Brian, was a successful investment banker who specialized in making deals on behalf of labor unions. 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. 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. Hedge fund Alden Global Capital in hunt for Lee Enterprises newspaper "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. Many of the operators were looking at the newspaper business as a local advertising business, he said, and we didnt believe that was the right way to look at it. 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. Glidden, then a mild-mannered 30-year-old, had come to journalism later in life than most and was eager to prove himself. It seemed reasonable to ask that they answer a few questions. He quotes H. L. Mencken, the papers crusading 20th-century columnist, on the joys of journalism: It is really the life of kings. Baltimore is an underdog town, Liz Bowie, a Sun reporter who was at the meeting, told me. 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. How this 'vulture' hedge fund's gutting of local newsrooms could hurt The Tribune Tower, the iconic former home of the Chicago Tribune, seen in Chicago, Illinois in 2015. Reinventing their papers could require years of false starts and fine-tuningand, most important, a delayed payday for Aldens investors. After a powerful Illinois state legislator resigned amid bribery allegations, the paper didnt have a reporter in Springfield to follow the resulting scandal. Theres little evidence that Alden cares about the sustainability of its newspapers. Fears for future of American journalism as hedge funds flex power Coppins offers several examples, like the Chicago Tribune and California's Vallejo Times-Herald. We were in collective revolt, Lillian Reed, a Sun reporter who helped organize the campaign, told me. Is this company saving newspapers or profiting from their demise? - The Im repulsed by the incestuous world of New York journalism, he tells New York magazine. 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. A native of Vallejo, he was proud to work for his hometown paper. 'Vulture' Fund Alden Global, Known For Slashing Newsrooms, Buys Tribune The Banner will launch with about 50 journalistsnot far from the size of the Sunand an ambitious mandate. The largest share of the blame was assigned to the Tribune board for allowing the sale to Alden to go through. That might sound like a losing formula, but these papers dont have to become sustainable businesses for Smith and Freeman to make money. Others pointed to Bainums financing partner, who pulled out of the deal at the 11th hour. One known investor, however, is the Randall and Barbara Smith Foundation, named for Alden founder Smith and his wife. Freeman was more animated when he turned to the prospect of extracting money from Big Tech. Through it all, the owners maintained their ruthless silencespurning interview requests and declining to articulate their plans for the paper. His editor cited a supposed journalistic infraction (Glidden had reported the resignation of a school superintendent before an agreed-upon embargo). This is predatory.. After serving in the Carter administrations Treasury Department, Brian became widely knownand fearedin the 80s for his hard-line negotiating style. Lee Enterprises rejects Alden Global Capital's unsolicited proposal 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.. Alden is known for . When Alden first started buying newspapers, at the tail end of the Great Recession, the industry responded with cautious optimism. [7][8] Alden's purchase price was $635 million, or $17.25 per share. But this acquisition was profound, making Alden Global . He shut down Project Thunderdome, parted ways with Paton, and placed all of Aldens newspapers on the auction block. 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 . Interestingly, Smiths foundation didnt do well with its Alden investments in 2016. Well, he told me, they have some very good reporters., This article appears in the November 2021 print edition with the headline The Men Who Are Killing Americas Newspapers., A Secretive Hedge Fund Is Gutting Newsrooms, I Dont Know That I Would Even Call It Meth Anymore, W. G. Sebald Ransacked Jewish Lives for His Fictions. So Freeman pivoted. Tribune shareholders approve takeover by Alden Global Capital By Julie Reynolds. They could be vain, bumbling, even corrupt. So what is this Distressed Opportunities fund? [12] Lee owns daily newspapers in 77 markets in 26 states, and about 350 weekly and specialty publications. 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. 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. When the city-hall reporter left a few months later, he picked up that beat too. So who is investing with them? 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 . Well, that wasnt the point. 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 . Lee's board of directors . This investment strategy does not come without social consequences. 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. NY Daily News owner Alden sues Lee after publisher rejects takeover bid Hedge fund Alden Global is buying newspaper chain Tribune Publishing Youd be surprised. Alden Global Capital is a hedge fund based in Manhattan, New York City. And everyone knows its going to run dry.. I would know he didnt mean it, and he would know he didnt mean it, but he would at least go through the motions. We were like, Theyre not going to take our newspaper from us! But if you really started fucking up in grandiose and belligerent ways, if you started stealing and grifting and lying, eventually somebody would come up behind you and say, Youre grifting and youre lying and theyd put it in the paper., The bad stuff runs for so long now, he went on, that by the time you get to it, institutions are irreparable, or damn near close., Take away the newsroom packed with meddling reporters, and a city loses a crucial layer of accountability.