There’s fear and loathing throughout the mainstream media (see Tribune Co./L.A. Times). But at Irvine-based Freedom Communications,long racked by family feuds and itself a takeover candidate four years ago,there’s improved financial results, partnerships with Google and Monster.com, and talk about how best to phase out the private equity boys. Freedom’s small community papers are humming and the TV stations are doing better. Even challenged flagship OC Register is operating at a respectable 20%-plus margin. The upbeat attitude begins with Scott Flanders. He’s in his second year as Freedom’s CEO after serving as a key outside director during the 2003 recapitalization that added $1 billion in debt, cashed out dissident heirs and brought aboard Blackstone Group and Providence Equity Partners. Flanders, who had run Columbia House for Blackstone, expected an easy time with the private equity firms but was warned “the family would drive me crazy.” Instead, he told the Forum for Corporate Directors, “It’s been just the opposite,the family has been embracing. The financial sponsors have been very difficult, as they have become masters of the universe.” But not to worry, it seems: Flanders said Freedom’s performance is on track for the company to retire debt and to buy out the equity investors by the May 2009 due date. Flanders said he has two “legacy” objectives: Freedom “transformed into an information company for the digital age” and “the family re-owning 100% of the company” …
Newport Beach super broker Rich Gadbois is out of his hedge fund and into an index-based fund. He’s joined with L.A. executive-comp specialist Peter Mullin (MullinTBG) to launch Mullin Asset Management; they’re investing in the increasingly popular ETFs (exchange-traded funds) and ETNs (exchange-traded notes), which tout tax advantages and low management fees for rich clients. The fund is starting with $110 million in assets. The goal is $2 billion. Gadbois had more than $6 billion under management at Merrill Lynch when he left in 2001 to start Vantis Capital with hedge fund manager Steve Holzman and Home Depot’s Kenneth Langone. Vantis reached $1.4 billion in assets before closing recently. Meanwhile, the Jude Frances jewelry line run by wife Frances Gadbois and Jude Steele now is in more than 100 stores nationwide, including Ice Accessories in South Coast Plaza and Neiman Marcus in Fashion Island …
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Separated at birth: Anna Nicole Smith lawyer Howard K. Stern, “Inside OC” reporter-producer David Nazar |
GOP guru Ken Khachigian has joined Santa Barbara-based law firm Hatch & Parent, working out of San Clemente …
Clinton AG Janet Reno keynotes the National Parkinson’s Foundation symposium Friday and Saturday at the Balboa Bay Club. Call (949) 764-6998.
