It comes as a relief to find out I’m not the only one who can’t get his head around why Avista Capital Partners didn’t sever ties with Par Ridder the first day they heard about his non-compete problem? I am not sure, nor are a handful of local attorneys I’ve spoken with in recent days, whether it was ever entirely possible for Avista to essentially disown Par. Even upon news of his non-compete and downloaded Pioneeer Press data problems. But it sure would have been worth a shot.
As it is, the educated guess, (by the above-mentioned attorneys, not me), is that the best Avista and Ridder can hope for between now and when Ramsey County Judge David C. Higgs hands down his decision in the injunction MediaNews wants against Ridder and two other former PiPress execs is a settlement — finally — with MediaNews boss, Dean Singleton, and the ability to at least conclude the public end of this fiasco.
(Now watch Judge Higgs rule in Ridder’s favor or give him an “admonishing” tap on the wrist.)
The five attorneys with whom I spoke all practice some form of labor/employment law, are familiar with non-competes and the Business 101 no-no of transfering confidential, proprietary information. One had just returned from vacation and knew only the barest outlines, but has long wondered what special power Ridder has over Avista that they’d travel this far down the road with him. That attorney and three others insisted on staying off record even while expressing the same level of bafflement on the hook Par has in this largely faceless New York equity company.
Thankfully, Ron Rosenbaum is comfortable sharing his opinions with the public. The attorney/KSTP legal analyst and radio host has a long background in non-competes and labor/employment contract law and is completely in synch with his legal peers in failing to understand both why this thing wasn’t settled long ago and why Avista hasn’t cut Par loose by now.
“Courts don’t like to get involved in this kind of thing,” said Rosenbaum. “That’s why injunctions like this are so rare. A court doesn’t want to get into the business of telling private parties what to do.”
Nevertheless, here we are with Ridder in open court, with media snarks scribbling furiously, arguing that pretty much everything was just, like, you know, a series of honest, innocent mistakes.
“Innocent mistakes? Well,” said Rosenbaum, “either he’s lying or he’s flat-out stupid. I mean, what he’s saying just isn’t credible. Either way it’s pretty hard now to un-ring the bell.”
“The sad irony here is that we’ve got these two newspaper companies tied up in a mess like this. These are people that, theoretically at least, the rest of us rely on to tell us the truth about what’s going on in town. And as we all know there’s been a move afoot for quite a while now to attack the credibility of the mainstream press. A case like this is the equivalent of throwing red meat to the lions.”
None of the great legal minds with whom I spoke could offer a good explanation for why back in March when all hell started breaking loose Avista didn’t just say to Ridder, “It appears you have misrepresented yourself to us. Therefore we are voiding your contract and will be seeking another publisher. MediaNews’ fight is with you. Not us.”
Somewhere there might be someone who sees Par Ridder as a unique and irreplaceable talent, the kind of brilliant captain you follow into the briney deep rather than shove aside for a capable yeoman who can hold the wheel steady through the stormy night. But I haven’t met or read of that person. The rap on Avista Capital Partners is that they don’t know newspapering from toilet papering, and something like this goes a long ways toward confirming the worst cynics’ worst suspicions.
Back to Rosenbaum, who says he would hold Avista’s attorneys responsible for not
adequately explaining the extent of their clients’ liability and what by every visible angle appears to be a disproportionate downside to this case … if he didn’t suspect that they did offer their grim assessment. “In the end it’s always the client’s decision, and this may be a case where the clients ignored their attorneys’ advice.”
The assumption I make is that Avista has tried several times to settle this with Dean Singleton and Singleton has refused, preferring for his reasons the added impact of the public PR disaster Ridder and Avista have taken … along with a fat payday and the pleasure of watching Avista get stuck with the tab for his legal fees and those 2000 hours of computer forensics work.
So how many punches is that? Two big ones and two smaller ones? And on top of the Star Tribune projecting 20% less revenue than Avista bought six months ago? Crimeny! A restless, impatient private equity firm might just decide, “To hell with this!”, and seek a very early exit from their newspaper adventure. In that case, a smart, hard-nosed operator with a stake in the market might offer them a fire sale price, plead imminent financial catastrophe to federal regulators and promise the public a return to journalistic health via a one newspaper universe.
I couldn’t help be struck yesterday when a reporter colleague asked Singleton if he foresaw the Twin Cities becoming a one-newspaper town and Singleton instantly, reflexively said that that would be a disservice to, “the east metro”, implying that it would be the big, and plainly bad Star Tribune driving the Pioneer Press out of this market.
When I asked, “Well, but what if YOU are the survivor?” Singleton ignored the question and continued on with the well work-shopped scenario that paints him as the wronged and embattled defender of the loyal St. Paul-ites.
(More than one press wag has laughed at the irony that Par Ridder has managed to turn a cutthroat operator like Dean Singleton into the sympathetic, noble victim of this episode.)
Despite Ridder telling David Carr of the New York Times that, “We [meaning his family] are NOT A PART of Avista”, (my emphasis), I can’t get past what seems the most logical explanation for Avista bonding so tightly with young Par. Namely, that somehow, somewhere, in some way elder Ridders have a stake in Avista or entities closely associated with it.
Leave a Reply Cancel reply