Lee Enterprises

Staff cuts, the closure of regional printing presses and cuts to printed editions characterize Lee Enterprises as it tries to expand its digital subscriber base while keeping existing print customers and advertisers on board.

Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund with a reputation for diminishing the newspapers it owns, appears to backing off its attempt to take over the parent company of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Omaha World-Herald.

Lee Enterprises, which owns the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and nearly two dozen other Midwest newspapers, last week rebuffed a $141 million bid from Alden Global Capital, which has a reputation for saddling newspapers with debt and aggressively cutting costs.

Lee Enterprises' board of directors rejected a buyout offer from Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund known for downsizing the newspapers it owns.

New York-based Alden Global Capital is offering to buy Lee Enterprises, which owns the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Omaha World-Herald, the Sioux City Journal and other newspapers around the Midwest.