The Alden Global hedge fund offers the purchase of Tribune Publishing

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Tribune Publishing owns the Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News and the Baltimore Sun, among other local newspapers.

The hedge fund made a non-binding proposal to buy the company for $ 14.25 per share, according to a deposit with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. The potential transaction represents a premium of 11% compared to the last closing price of the company, on Wednesday, of 12.79 USD.

“We believe that, as a private company, Tribune could unlock significant strategic and financial value, thus allowing us … to make an offer to acquire all common shares of Tribune that are not already owned by Alden,” he said. said the fund.

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

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

Alden currently holds a 32% stake in Tribune, which it acquired in November 2019. Alden has long been criticized for buying stakes in newspaper companies and then cutting jobs in the newsroom. He already owns about 200 newspapers through the majority stock of MediaNews Group, which includes the Denver Post, Mercury News and the Boston Herald.

Alden said in a letter to the Publishing Board that he was ready to go into business immediately.

Tribune did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Alden made a fortune destroying local news,” NewsGuild-CWA President Jon Schleuss said on Thursday. “They are shaping short-term business plans that reduce newsrooms to the end … Our thousands of members will continue to fight for ownership of local news hedge funds.”

In a petition in December last year to the Tribune Publishing Commission, hundreds of Tribune employees said Alden has a “well-documented history of extracting short-term profits from already weak operations by cutting jobs in the newsroom and refusing to fair wages and benefits.

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