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Editor-at-large Mark Fitzgerald of Editor & Publisher observes that troubled companies such as the Journal Register Company and MediaNews Group have decided to stop filing those arcane but revealing financial reports such as the SC 13D and the 10-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It’s a trend Fitzgerald doesn’t like much, but he expects it to continue.
He observes that the Tribune Company, now that it’s gone private, doesn’t have to tell the SEC anything the banks that financed Sam Zell’s takeover don’t order it to tell. And as for the Sun-Times Media Group, whose stock is now worth about 70 cents a share — it’s a prime candidate to tell the SEC to shove it. Fitzgerald savors the irony. He tells Saba it was the brokerage firm of Tweedy, Browne that began studying the documents Hollinger International turned over to the SEC when Conrad Black ran the company and wondering, “Who are all these guys getting all these financial fees? And why are you selling everything to yourselves and getting fees back on top of that?” Fitzgerald continues, “That kind of exposed the accounting house of cards going on — according to the federal authorities the larceny going on.”
