{"id":21920,"date":"2019-06-03T07:30:55","date_gmt":"2019-06-03T12:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=21920"},"modified":"2019-06-03T07:41:06","modified_gmt":"2019-06-03T12:41:06","slug":"another-tribune-payday-michael-ferro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2019\/06\/03\/another-tribune-payday-michael-ferro\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Tribune payday for Michael Ferro \u2014 $13.6 million"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

<\/a> Tribune Publishing<\/p><\/div>\n

You may have missed an interesting footnote to news last week that Chicago-based Tribune Publishing<\/a> declared a special cash dividend <\/a>of $56 million to its shareholders.<\/p>\n

Buried in the details was word that Michael Ferro, the company\u2019s former chairman and still its biggest shareholder, would pocket a cool $13.6 million himself.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Michael Ferro<\/p><\/div>\n

Ferro, you\u2019ll recall, resigned as chairman last year just hours before Fortune magazine published a scathing report <\/a>that accused him of inappropriate sexual behavior toward two women. On the way out Ferro was handed a $15 million \u201cconsulting fee\u201d (later reduced by $2.5 million to $12.5 million).<\/p>\n

In December NPR reported that Tribune Publishing made secret payments<\/a> of more than $2.5 million to keep a former publisher and editor of the Los Angeles Times from disclosing Ferro\u2019s comments about a \u201cJewish cabal\u201d that ran Los Angeles. A spokesman for Ferro denied he made the slur. Tribune Publishing declined to comment.<\/p>\n

Steve Daniels, senior reporter for Crain\u2019s Chicago Business, pointed out that while the company pays Ferro a \u201cneedless dividend\u201d <\/a>of nearly $14 million, it has eliminated 929 positions over the past 15 months, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust did the math,\u201d Daniels tweeted.<\/a> \u201cThe layoffs accounted for 18 percent of their workforce. So, yeah, a $56 million, one-time dividend makes perfect sense for a company that's pink-slipped nearly one in five of its workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Chicago Tribune reported<\/a> it was the first dividend paid to shareholders since Tribune Publishing spun off in August 2014 as a stand-alone company. The company had $98.2 million in unrestricted cash at the end of the first quarter, making it \u201cboth a potential buyer of other media properties and an acquisition target.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tim Knight, president and CEO of Tribune Publishing, said the dividend \u201creflects our confidence in future performance as we continue investing in our award-winning journalism, building our digital subscribership, and enhancing our platform for advertisers,\u201d adding: \u201cWe believe these investments will deliver long-term value for our shareholders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s comment of the day: <\/a>Jim Vail:<\/strong> May I suggest that WGN take the plaques out of storage and incorporate them into a stairway leading down to the river. You know, where their current ratings are.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may have missed an interesting footnote to news last week that Chicago-based Tribune Publishing declared a special cash dividend of $56 million to its shareholders. Buried in the details was word that Michael Ferro, the company\u2019s former chairman and still its biggest shareholder, would pocket a cool $13.6 million himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21920"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21920"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21923,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21920\/revisions\/21923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}