Lee Enterprises
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Lee headquarters
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| Public (: LEE) | |
| Industry | Media |
| Founded | 1890 |
| Founder | A. W. Lee |
| Headquarters | Davenport, Iowa United States |
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Key people
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Mary Junck (Executive Chairman) Kevin Mowbray (President and CEO) |
| Products | Newspapers and television station |
| Revenue |
 US$648.5 million (2015)
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US$109.3 million (2015)
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US$24.31 million (2015)
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| Total assets |
 US$763.5 million (2015)
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Number of employees
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10,700 |
| Website | Lee Enterprises website |
Lee Enterprises is a publicly traded American media company. It publishes 54 daily newspapers in 23 states, and more than 300 weekly, classified, and specialty publications. Lee Enterprises was founded in 1890 by Alfred Wilson Lee and is based in Davenport, Iowa.
The company also provides online services, including websites supporting its daily newspapers and other publications. As of September 2013, Lee had 23.2 million unique web and mobile visitors, with 209.1 million pages viewed. Lee also owns 82.5% of TownNews.com, an Internet service company. 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.
Since January 2012, its Executive Chairman, Mary Junck, has also been Chairman of the Associated Press.
The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2011. 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.
In June 2012, Berkshire Hathaway filed an amended Form 13F (13F-HR/A) for the period ending March 31, 2012. This document disclosed that Berkshire accumulated $2,119,000 or 1,655,125 common shares of Lee Enterprises, or a 3.2 percent stake. The document noted that the confidentiality of this transaction was requested but denied by the SEC on May 25, 2012.
In April 2013, Lee Enterprises announced that Berkshire Hathaway refinanced the remaining Pulitzer acquisition debt equating to $94 million. 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.
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Wikipedia