CHICAGO (AP) — The newspaper publisher Tribune has agreed to be sold to Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund known for cutting costs and eliminating newsroom jobs, in a deal valued at $630 billion.
Tribune Publishing Co., which owns the Virginian-Pilot, Daily Press, Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News, the Baltimore Sun and other newspapers, said Tuesday it has agreed to sell its shares to Alden for $17.25 apiece, in cash.
Alden became Tribune Publishing’s largest shareholder in 2019; it holds a 32% stake. Alden owns one of the country’s largest newspaper chains and is known for consolidation and cuts in fixed costs, including newsroom jobs, to squeeze out profits. Its papers include the Boston Herald, the Denver Post and the San Jose Mercury News.
Tribune said the purchase price represents a premium of 45% to the closing price of Tribune’s shares on Dec. 11, the last trading day before the company received Alden’s proposal. Tribune’s board has approved the deal, which is expected to close in the second quarter.
The Tribune-owned papers in Virginia, which also include the Virginia Gazette in Williamsburg and Tidewater Review in West Point, have been slowly losing staff and workspace in recent years.
In January 2020, the Virginian-Pilot building on West Brambleton Avenue in Norfolk was sold for $9.5 million. The developer said it would turn the 173,000-square-foot building into 181 apartments.
Following the sale of the Pilot building and stock purchase by Alden Global Capital, Tribune offered buyouts to its Virginia Media staff. About 20 journalists left the Pilot in February 2020, as well as others at the Daily Press.
Employees from the Pilot were slated to work from the Daily Press newsroom in Newport News, however, that office space also closed by the end of September 2020, leaving staff without a newsroom.
The Tidewater Media Guild, a union representing Tribune newspaper employees in Eastern Virginia, tweeted Tuesday night, saying the local papers “will now be owned by a hedge fund known as a ‘destroyers of newspapers.’”
