Lee Enterprises
Lee Enterprises, Inc. is a publicly traded American media company. It publishes 77 daily newspapers in 26 states, and more than 350 weekly, classified, and specialty publications. Lee Enterprises was founded in 1890 by Alfred Wilson Lee and is based in Davenport, Iowa.
Lee headquarters | |
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
Traded as | Nasdaq: LEE Russell Microcap Index component |
| Industry | Media |
| Founded | 1890 |
| Founder | Alfred Wilson Lee |
| Headquarters | Davenport, Iowa |
Key people |
|
| Products | Newspapers and television station |
| Revenue | US$780.9 million (2022) |
| US$24.9 million (2022) | |
Net income | US$97,000 (2022) |
| Total assets | US$744 million (2022) |
Number of employees | 4,365 (2022) |
| Website | lee |
| Footnotes / references | |
The company also provides online services, including websites supporting its daily newspapers and other publications. Lee had more than 25 million unique web and mobile visitors monthly, with 209.1 million pages viewed. Lee became majority partner of TownNews.com in 1996; Town News creates software for newspaper publication purposes. The company offers commercial printing services to its customers.
Lee Enterprises is currently the fourth largest newspaper group in the United States of America. The company acquired Howard Publications (16 daily newspapers) for $694 million in 2002 and Pulitzer, Inc. (14 daily, over 100 non-daily), for $1.5 billion in 2005.
From January 2012 to April 2017, the company's executive chairman, Mary Junck, was chairman of the Associated Press. In December 2018, Lee Enterprises announced that Mary Junck would transition from Executive Chairman to Chairman of the company.
In January 2020, Lee Enterprises announced an agreement with Berkshire Hathaway to acquire BH Media Group's publications and The Buffalo News for $140 million in cash.
In November 2021, global hedge fund Alden Global Capital made an offer to acquire Lee Enterprises for $24 per share, or about $141 million. In response, the board of Lee Enterprises enacted a shareholder rights plan, colloquially known as a "poison pill", in order to ward off the purchase attempt. Then, in early December, the board of Lee unanimously rejected the Alden bid, saying that the Alden proposal "grossly undervalues Lee and fails to recognize the strength of our business today."
In November 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice alleged two Iranian nationals had accessed the company's content management system in the fall of 2020, aiming to post false news about the presidential election.