| I went to work for the Mt. Pleasant Morning Sun as its news editor in 2000. Since then, it's been through two bankruptcy processes (one which led to it leaving private ownership to the ultimately publicly traded Journal Register Company, and the other under JRC's careful and wise stewardship). Make that a third. Today Digital First Media announced Journal Register Company has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will seek to implement a prompt sale. We expect the auction and sale process to take about 90 days, and I am pleased to tell you the Company has a signed stalking horse bid for Journal Register Company from 21st CMH Acquisition Co., an affiliate of funds managed by Alden Global Capital LLC.
Once more into the hands of venture capitalists. The last time around, the hedge fund that owned what was then 21st Century Newspapers made its profit the good old fashioned way ... taking companies others had built but that had turned unprofitable because of industry changes, mashing them together into a partnership that didn't make much sense, cutting costs mostly by slashing pay and benefits and workforce, and then selling it with reduced liabilities for a happy profit. In other words, they got the Bain treatment. By the way, my weekly column is published by an affected property. Up until a few weeks ago, it's also the company that published Chad Selweski's column and gave a home to his blog. |
