Lee Enterprises

The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2011.[11] It emerged from bankruptcy less than two months later. In April 2012, Warren Buffett took a stake in Lee Enterprises (through Berkshire Hathaway Inc.), buying $85 million of the company's debt from Goldman Sachs Group.[12]

In June 2012, Berkshire Hathaway filed an amended Form 13F (13F-HR/A) for the period ending March 31, 2012.[13] This document disclosed that Berkshire accumulated $2,119,000 or 1,655,125 common shares of Lee Enterprises, or a 3.2 percent stake.[14] The document noted that the confidentiality of this transaction was requested but denied by the SEC on May 25, 2012.[15]

In April 2013, Lee Enterprises announced that Berkshire Hathaway refinanced the remaining Pulitzer acquisition debt equating to $94 million.[16] Lee Enterprises incurred no cost for doing this. The collateral involved was the TNI Partner stake including the Arizona Daily Star and azstarnet.com. The result of this was a reduction in interest from a variable rate of 11.3% to a fixed rate of 9% while at the same time extending the debt maturity date of the debt from December 2015 to April 2017. At the time of the announcement Lee Enterprises noted they had $893 million left to pay off. Lee paid off and retired its New Pulitzer notes in June 2015, 6 months before the original maturity date and 22 months before the new maturity date. Lee also refinanced its remaining debt in 2014 in order to extend the maturities from 2015 and 2017 to 2019 and 2022. Lee retired its 1st Lien Term Loan in November 2018, four months before its scheduled March 2019 maturity.

On June 27, 2018, Lee Enterprises and Berkshire Hathaway reached a five-year agreement to allow Lee Enterprises to manage Berkshire Hathaway's newspaper and digital operations.[17]

Lee Enterprises announced an agreement to buy Berkshire Hathaway’s BH Media Group publications and The Buffalo News for $140 million cash on January 29, 2020. The acquisition comprises 30 daily newspapers in 10 states plus 49 paid weekly publications with digital sites, as well as 32 other additional print products. Daily papers include Omaha World-Herald in Nebraska, Tulsa World in Oklahoma, and Winston-Salem Journal in North Carolina. Lee enters into a 10-year lease for BH Media’s real estate as part of the agreement.[18]

To finance the acquisition, Berkshire Hathaway provided $576 million in long-term financing to Lee at 9% per annum. Lee Enterprises used those funds to pay for the Berkshire properties and refinance its roughly $400 million in existing debt. Much of this remains from the purchase of Pulitzer Inc. for $1.5 billion in 2005.[19] Berkshire became Lee’s sole lender after the deal closed on March 16 2020.[18]

“We had zero interest in selling the group to anyone else for one simple reason: We believe that Lee is best positioned to manage through the industry’s challenges,” Warren Buffett said in a statement.[20]

Lee Enterprises owns 75 daily newspapers and approximately 350 specialty publications in 26 states.[21] The company's portfolio grew substantially, nearly doubling its audience size, with the acquisition of BH Media Group's publications in early 2020, including the Omaha World-Herald, Richmond Times-Dispatch and Tulsa World.[18]

In January 2020, Lee Enterprises sold newspaper and digital media operations in southern Oregon to Country Media, Inc. The sale included The World (Coos Bay), the Bandon Western World and The Umpqua Post. Lee had purchased the papers as part of its acquisition of Pulitzer, Inc. in 2005.[22][23]

In March 2020, Lee sold the Santa Maria Times, The Lompoc Record, The Hanford Sentinel and the Santa Ynez Valley News to Santa Maria News Media Inc., a newly formed company led by a group of Canadian newspaper executives.[24]

Other publications Lee has formerly owned include the North County Times, The Garden Island, The Provo Daily Herald, Daily Chronicle, Rhinelander Daily News, Shawano Leader, and The Ledger Independent of Maysville, KY.

Lee formerly operated a broadcasting division, which it sold in 2000 to pay off debt and in order to focus on newspaper publishing. Most of the TV stations were sold to Emmis Communications[26], and have all been sold, as of 2007, to other companies.

• (**) – Indicates that it was built and signed on by Lee Enterprises.

In addition, Lee also operated KASY-TV in Albuquerque which was owned by Ramar Communications. That station was a UPN affiliate. KASY was sold to WB affiliate KWBQ in 1999 when the LMA was terminated.

Official website

• Business data for Lee Enterprises, Inc.:
  • Google Finance
  • Yahoo! Finance
  • Bloomberg
  • Reuters
  • SEC filings