News + Media Capital Group LLC bought the paper and some affiliated publications for $140 million, a markup of about 37 percent from the paper’s last sale earlier this year, when the similarly named New Media Investment Group bought it. The new buyer was incorporated in September.
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The Adelsons say they held back because Tuesday’s Republican presidential debate was taking place at the Venetian, the casino-hotel on the Las Vegas Strip that is part of Adelson’s empire.
“Who would want to own a newspaper, be willing to pay over the odds, and just not care what the PR blowback would be?” he said.
But despite widespread calls for Adelson to admit that he bought the paper, he has yet to do so, telling CNN that he had “no personal interest” in purchasing the Review-Journal.
Gatehouse Media LLC, a subsidiary of the previous owner, will keep running the publication with a Sunday circulation of 184,000.
Schroeder said News + Media had been aiming to buy the newspaper for six to eight months.
“Adelson has not responded to repeated requests for comment over the past several days”, the magazine reported on Tuesday, as speculation concerning the buyer’s identity increasingly focused on the casino magnate.
One of the most fascinating media stories in recent memory has been the mystery surrounding who owns the Las Vegas Review-Journal. And, as the Nevada Press Association points out, the Review-Journal has always leaned conservative, citing their role in a 2010 attempt to oust Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Morton and other staffers who expressed frustration on social media and demanded to know the identity of the buyer have declined to comment to The Associated Press.
A major donor to Republican candidates, Adelson spent at least $100 million in the 2012 presidential election.
The online poker community’s arch-nemesis is the new owner of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
He said the public company had no intention to resell the paper, but it did so out of fiduciary duty in the interest of its shareholders when it was made an offer of $140 million.
Adelson’s name came up as a possible buyer, especially since he already owns a daily newspaper in Israel, which Nevada columnist said the mogul “uses to wield political influence”. Both were executives at BostonNOW, a defunct free daily newspaper in Adelson’s hometown. Davis said New Media Investment was not looking to sell the Review-Journal and its Nevada holdings, but the deal was in the best interest of the company’s shareholders. A confidentiality agreement didn’t allow them to disclose who it was doing business with.
Patrick Dumont, a son-in-law of Adelson and a senior vice president of finance and strategy of Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands Corp., put the deal together “at the behest of his father-in-law, the chairman and CEO of the casino operator”, according to a front-page story in the R-J on Thursday.
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In fact, the Adelson family tried to address those concerns in their statement today confirming ownership of the paper.
