Hedge Funds and Journalism Don't Mix
The winners in Tribune's deal to sell itself to aggressive cost-cutter Alden Global are the newspapers that got away and found other owners.
Read all about it: storied newspaper owner's wild ride meets predictable end.
Photographer: Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg
So this is how it ends. Tribune Publishing Co., the storied newspaper owner, agreed to sell itself to Alden Global Capital LLC, a hedge fund with a reputation for gutting newsrooms with cost cuts, at a valuation of $630 million.
The news comes almost five years to the day after technology investor Michael Ferro bought a large stake in Tribune, became its chairman and unleashed a torrent of drama. If you look just at the starting and closing stock prices of Tribune over that period, this result for the owner of the Chicago Tribune and New York Daily News might seem like a relative success. Ferro bought his shares for $8.50 a piece, sold his stake to Alden in late 2019 for $13 and now the hedge fund is offering $17.25 for Tribune’s remaining shares outstanding. All in, the stock has appreciated about 90% for those patient enough to hold on through these past five years. But the word “patient” doesn’t really do justice to this tumultuous period.