Hedge fund Alden Global offers to buy Tribune Publishing

Hedge fund Alden Global offers to buy Tribune Publishing

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Tribune Publishing owns, among others, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News and the Baltimore Sun.

The hedge fund has made a non-binding proposal to buy the company for $ 14.25 per share, according to an application filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. The potential deal represents an 11% premium to the company’s last closing price on Wednesday of $ 12.79.

“We believe that Tribune as a private company could unlock significant strategic and financial value and thus we could … make an offer to acquire all of the ordinary shares of Tribune not yet owned by Alden,” the fence said. fund said.

The Wall Street Journal was the first to report on the bid.

In June, Alden won a third seat on Tribune Publishing’s board in exchange for a ceasefire agreement with the newspaper chain. The agreement prevents Alden from increasing its stake in the company until June 2021.

Alden currently has a 32% stake in the Tribune, which he bought in November 2019. Alden has long been criticized for buying a stake in newspaper businesses and then cutting jobs in the newsroom. It already owns about 200 newspapers through its majority stake in MediaNews Group, which includes the Denver Post, the Mercury News and the Boston Herald.

Alden said in a letter to the Tribune Publishing Board that they are ready to enter into the agreement immediately.

Tribune did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Alden earned a fortune by destroying local news,” NewsGuild-CWA president Jon Schleuss said Thursday. “They design short-term business plans that cut news editors to the bone … Our thousands of members will continue to fight the current ownership of local news.”

In a petition to the Tribune Publishing Board in December last year, hundreds of Tribune employees said that Alden has a “well-documented history of making short-term profits from all meager operations by reducing editorial positions and denying fair wages and benefits.

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