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, Alden has mastered the profitable dismantling of newspapers. , representing a 30% premium over the company's closing stock price the previous Friday.Īlden is a "vulture capitalism" firm that in the last decade has purchased dozens of newspapers and ruthlessly gutted them by cutting staff, selling property and jacking up subscription costs in an effort to maximize short-term profits while ensuring a steadily worsening product and, eventually, the likely closing of the newspaper.Īccording to an in-depth report in The Atlantic last month The tactic is used to make a targeted company less attractive to the potential acquirer.Īlden Global Capital said in a letter to Lee's board last week that it was offering $24 a share What's left is a wheezing shell of what once existed. McFeely: Hedge fund acquiring Bismarck Tribune would be all kinds of bad news for North DakotaĪlden Global Capital purchases newspapers and guts them, laying off journalists and squeezing the oxygen out of newsrooms to maximize short-term profits. Lee Enterprises owns nearly 100 newspapers around the country, including The Bismarck Tribune and dozens of others around the Midwest. Hedge fund known for cutting journalism jobs bids for company that owns Bismarck Tribune More commonly known as a "poison pill," it's a defense strategy used by a targeted firm "to prevent or discourage a potential hostile takeover by an acquiring company," according to the website Investopedia. The board of directors of Davenport, Iowa-based Lee Enterprises unanimously voted for what is technically known as a limited-duration shareholder rights plan. BISMARCK - In an attempt to protect against a takeover by a New York City hedge fund known for gutting newspapers, the national chain that owns the Bismarck Tribune adopted a so-called "poison pill" plan,