Alden Global Capital swallowed all of the Tribune's newspapers, including the New York Daily News, earlier in 2021. Russ Smith is a puckish libertarian whose self-described contempt for the journalistic class animates the pages of the publication. I sort of bully people around to get stuff done, he boasted to The Washington Post in 1985. 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. The endorsement debate swings around again - Columbia Journalism Review Baltimore is an underdog town, Liz Bowie, a Sun reporter who was at the meeting, told me. One known investor, however, is the Randall and Barbara Smith Foundation, named for Alden founder Smith and his wife. With Alden in control, he believes the Sun is now a prisoner that stands little chance of escape. But while its true that Alden entered the industry by purchasing floundering newspapers, not all of them were necessarily doomed to liquidation. Its World War II correspondent brought firsthand news of Nazi concentration camps to American readers; its editorial page had the power to make or break political careers in Maryland. This once-proud publication is now owned and run by Alden Global Capital, a multibillion-dollar hedge fund with a long record of buying papers on the cheap, selling off their assets and slashing pay and jobs. But we dont know, because they arent saying. 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. 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. He had spoken on this issue before, and it was easy to see why. [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. My request for an interview with Smith was dismissed by his spokesperson before I finished asking. But most of them also had a stake in the communities their papers served, which meant that, if nothing else, their egos were wrapped up in putting out a respectable product. 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. It was like watching a slow-motion disaster, says Gregory Pratt, a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. Other large shareholders include Californian asset manager Capital Group and UK fund manager Jupiter Asset Management. The hollowing-out of the Chicago Tribune was noted in the national press, of course. Alden Global Capital already owns 200 publications and a 6% stake in Lee Enterprises. They could be vain, bumbling, even corrupt. Live news: US manufacturing sector contracts for fourth straight month Alden is known for . That may well be the future of local news, he says. . Live news updates from February 28: Tesla to build Mexico - ft.com 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 . Maybe this obscure hedge fund had a plan. My question was did Knight know what Alden was doing to newspapers when it invested with the hedge fund, and does it regret that investment now? This story originally appeared on the Morning Edition live blog. The practical effect of the death of local journalism is that you get what weve had, he told me, which is a halcyon time for corruption and mismanagement and basically misrule.. Ken Kelleher - Creative Director / Artist - LinkedIn Alden Global Capital is buying and gutting local newspapers : NPR - NPR.org This Is How a Newspaper Dies - POLITICO Magazine Alden Global Capital Is Killing the Newsroom - Common Dreams Other records turned up from public pension funds and filings of publicly traded companies. Traditional newspaper business model says you make 95% of your money off ad sales and the rest off subscriptions. * Edited from 'independent . [4][13], In November 2021, Alden made an offer to Lee to purchase the company in its entirety for roughly $141 million. Alden is in the business of making money, not journalism. Glidden had heard rumblings about the papers owners when he first took the job, but he hadnt paid much attention. 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. The editor in chief mysteriously resigned, and managers scrambled to deal with the cuts. Some in the industry say they wouldnt be surprised if Smith and Freeman end up becoming the biggest newspaper moguls in U.S. history. Through it all, the owners maintained their ruthless silencespurning interview requests and declining to articulate their plans for the paper. By the charitys own accounting, it lost $ 2.3 million in book value on a $17 million investment that year. About a month after The Baltimore Sun was acquired by Alden, a senior editor at the paper took questions from anxious reporters on Zoom. But within weeks, Bainum said, Alden tried to tack on a five-year licensing deal that would have cost him tens of millions more. Aldens Distressed Opportunities Fund was launched in 2008 and saw astounding success in its first few months, showing returns of more than 30 percent a big rescue for Alden, whose investments in Russia the year before had lost more than 61 percent of their value. Hes acutely aware of the risksI may end up with egg on my face, he saidbut he believes its worth trying to develop a successful model that could be replicated in other markets. Daily News spinoff stirs anxiety after Alden takeover - New York Post It was founded in 2007 by Randall D. Updated May 21, 2021 at 2:13 PM ET. 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. Have you heard of the hedge fund Alden Global Capital? [11], In November 2021, Alden Global Capital made an offer to purchase Lee Enterprises for $24 a share in cash, or about $141 million. 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. The newsroom was moved to a single room rented from the local chamber of commerce. Below are highlights from his conversation with Morning Edition's A Martnez. 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. Eventually he was the only news reporter left on staff, charged with covering the citys police, schools, government, courts, hospitals, and businesses. Its a game, Randy explains to his son. In truth, Freeman didnt seem particularly interested in defending Aldens reputation. Now it might be facing extinction. Freeman would show up at business meetings straight from the gym, clad in athleisure, the executive recalled, and would find excuses to invoke his college-football heroics, saying things like When I played football at Duke, I learned some lessons about leadership. (Freeman was a walk-on placekicker on a team that won no games the year he played.). hide caption. 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. But for that to happen, the Big Tech money would need to flow to underfunded newsrooms, not into the pockets of Aldens investors. Joe Pompeo pilloried Alden in Vanity Fair for reducing newsrooms. Its hard to imagine theyd show, anyway. Instead, the money was used to finance the hedge funds other ventures. It hurts to see the paper like this, he told her. Freeman, his 41-year-old protg and the president of the firm, would be unrecognizable in most of the newsrooms he owns. The company has been growing its portfolio and as of May 2021, owns over 100 newspapers and 200 assorted other publications. Tribune Publishing last month approved a $630m takeover deal with Alden Global Capital. about two hundred American newspapers. The purchase represents the culmination of Alden's years-long drive to take over the company and its storied titles . 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. At the Suns peak, it employed more than 400 journalists, with reporters in London and Tokyo and Jerusalem. After college he worked at Hudson Studio, Art Foundry in Niverville, NY . Hedge fund Alden in hunt for another big newspaper chain - WKMG It seemed reasonable to ask that they answer a few questions. Alden began its acquisition of Tribune Publishing in 2019, when they paid $117.9 million to Michael Ferro for his 25.2-percent stake. '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. 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. After a powerful Illinois state legislator resigned amid bribery allegations, the paper didnt have a reporter in Springfield to follow the resulting scandal. Meet the Hedge Fund Boss Who Just Bought Tribune's Newspapers [13], In response, the board of Lee Enterprises enacted a shareholder rights plan, colloquially known as a "poison pill", in order to ward off the purchase attempt. Freeman never responded. He studied art at Alfred University under sculptors Glenn Zweygardt and William Parry. The scene was somehow even grimmer than Id imagined. Hellman and BNP together own 46.4 per cent of Allfunds' shares. They had a father-figure relationship, one told me. "[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. To David Simon, the whimpering end of The Baltimore Sun feels both inevitable and infuriating. The paper had weathered a decade and a half of mismanagement and declining revenues and layoffs, and had finally achieved a kind of stability. He told me it will begin with an annual operating budget of $15 million, unprecedented for an outfit of this kind. He said that he still appreciated their journalism, but that he couldnt speak for his corporate bosses. Im worried the worst is yet to come. They were very tight. Freeman has resisted elaborating on his relationship with Smith, saying simply that they were family friends before going into business together. 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. Glidden, then a mild-mannered 30-year-old, had come to journalism later in life than most and was eager to prove himself. So what is this Distressed Opportunities fund? 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.. It has filed a lawsuit in its bid to buy out news publisher Lee Enterprises. Bainum envisioned rebuilding the paperwhich, by 2020, was down to a single full-time statehouse reporteras a nonprofit. Even in the greed is good climate of the era, Randy is a polarizing character on Wall Street. Im repulsed by the incestuous world of New York journalism, he tells New York magazine. He gained 100 pounds and started grinding his teeth at night. Alden currently owns 32%. Smith & Company. It's a tangled tale but essentially Asylum produced a film for the McDonald's charitable foundation for Leo. 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. How Alden Global Capital will make money owning Tribune Publishing He declined to meet me in person or to appear on Zoom. Coppins describes Alden as a specific type of firm: a "vulture hedge fund." You need real capital to move the needle, he told me. But whats happening in Chicago is different. Fears for future of American journalism as hedge funds flex power They call Alden a vulture hedge fund, and I think thats honestly a misnomer, Johnson said. Newspapers Have Been Struggling And Then Came The Pandemic - Forbes Two days after the deal was finalized, Alden announced an aggressive round of buyouts. Heath Freeman in an undated photo provided by Goldin Solutions . 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. 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 . [10][19][20], The company has its origins in R.D. Tips that he would never have time to investigate piled up on a legal pad he kept at his desk. When The New York Times profiles him in 1991, it notes that he excels at profiting from other peoples misery and quotes a parade of disgruntled clients and partners. Alden Global Capital has currently bid to buy all of Tribune. . "[18], Alden received critical coverage from the editorial staff at the Denver Post, who described Alden Global Capital as "vulture capitalists" after multiple staff layoffs. The question was how. 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, 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 . Today, half of all daily newspapers in the U.S. are controlled by financial firms, according to an analysis by the Financial Times, and the number is almost certain to grow. Stewart Bainum, since losing his bid for the Sun, has been quietly working on a new venture. Former Knight-Ridder headquarters. 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.. 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.
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