MNG execs to get big salaries despite bankruptcy

Jody Lodovic and Dean Singleton

While most creditors have accepted 19 cents on the dollar, documents MediaNews Group has filed in bankruptcy court show the company's chief executive, Dean Singleton (right), could get as much as $1.49 million in annual compensation while his heir apparent, Jody Lodovic (left), could get up to $2.25 million.

Lodovic will receive:

• a base salary of $1,006,000; 

• 3% of the new stock of MediaNews; 

• is eligible for a bonus of as much as $500,000;

• has already been paid $250,000 this fiscal year for work related to The Denver Post;

• and will get possibly $500,000 depending on how the bankruptcy goes.

Read about it here. Turn to PDF pages 69 and 70 (which are numbered 54 and 55 on the document itself).

Related articles:

• LA Observed points out that Singleton's newspapers aren't printing his salaries.

• The Seattle Times rails against the idea that banks will own 88% of MediaNews. The Seattle paper discusses Singleton's latest business model: 

If there ever was a way to kill the American people's appetite for newspapers, it is this. Make the paper non-local. Make it the same everywhere. Treat it as a "property," like a telephone-company bond or a share of stock. 
Don't sweat the long run because in the long run, as the economist said, we are all dead. That is not the way to save newspapers. 
Newspapers need to be in the hands of people who care about them. Those are almost always investors with a strong local connection. The San Jose Mercury News ought to be owned by people from San Jose — not by a company in Denver owned by another company in Denver owned by a bank in Charlotte, N.C. The banks taking over MediaNews should dismember the chain and sell the newspapers to local owners who will do right by them.
• The Denver Daily News reports that MediaNews has filed a motion with the bankruptcy court to prevent its phones from being shut off.