Jeffrey Epstein’s Ties to Hedge Fund CEO Financing $1.79B GateHouse & Gannett Merger

Leon Black’s Apollo Global Management is financing the merger of GateHouse Media and Gannett with a $1.79 billion term loan — a loan that comes with a steep interest rate of 11.5%.

Thus, the person who is nearly guaranteed to make the most money on this mega-merger deal is Black -- a close friend of registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The merged newspaper group will create America’s first mega-group which locally owns the Providence Journal, Newport Daily News, Worcester Telegram, The Herald (Fall River) and more than 250 other daily newspapers and thousands of weeklies across the country. The new company could have a tremendous impact on political news coverage and editorial voice.

Black is one of the titans of Wall Street and over the past 20 years has had a close personal relationship with once convicted pedophile Epstein, who is now facing far more serious sex abuse federal charges.

Epstein’s now pending charges include sexual abuse of girls as young as 14-years-of-age.

The federal indictment filed in June by the Department of Justice cited multiple cases of sexual abuse by Epstein, “In or about 2002, Minor Victim-1 was recruited to engage in sex acts with EPSTEIN and was repeatedly sexually abused by EPSTEIN at the New York Residence over a period of years and was paid hundreds of dollars for each encounter. EPSTEIN also encouraged and enticed Minor Victim-1 to recruit other girls to engage in paid sex acts, which she did. EPSTEIN asked Minor Victim-1 how old she was, and Minor Victim-1 answered truthfully.”

Epstein along with Black and Black’s wife served as the directors of the Leon Black Family Foundation in the years leading up to Epstein’s first plea deal that made him a registered sex offender and for four years after Epstein’s conviction.

In 2008, Epstein pled guilty to a felony charge of solicitation of prostitution involving a minor, and was sentenced to 18 months in prison; he served 13, and was granted work release, which allowed him to commute to an office outside the jail six days a week. During his jail time, he continued to serve as a member of the board of the non-profit.

The foundation has donated tens of millions of dollars in gifts to top prep schools, universities including Brown, Harvard and other members of the Ivy League, as well as top art museums.

Billionaire Black has homes all over the world and according to the Wall Street Journal owns one of four versions of Edvard Munch’s The Scream, acquired at an auction price of $119.9 million in 2012.

Black, Epstein and Apollo and America’s Newspapers

Beyond the family foundation, Epstein also had access to Appollo — a fund with over $312 billion under management.

“Almost a decade after Jeffrey Epstein was first accused of preying on young women, he still had access to the inner sanctum of Apollo Global Management,” reports Bloomberg.

“For instance, in 2015, Black dispatched Apollo co-founder Marc Rowan to attend a meeting at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion with Edmond de Rothschild Group to discuss how the two firms could work more closely, two people said,” according to Bloomberg.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Black and Apollo are now trying to distance themselves from the longstanding personal and professional relationship with Epstein.

“[Black] doesn’t think his previous association with jailed financier Jeffrey Epstein is impacting the firm’s relationship with investors. He also read from an email he sent to Apollo employees last Friday which stated that Apollo, as a firm, had never done business with Mr. Epstein.

In the email, he said that he and related family entities had received professional services from Mr. Epstein that included tax, estate-planning and philanthropic advice.”

While Black now continues to distance himself after the most recent federal sex charges against Epstein, it is clear that the 2008 sex charges had little impact on the two’s relationship.

Now, Black’s firm is the backbone to this massive merger of two shrinking newspaper groups.

“In this deal, Apollo is supplying much of the money to get the deal done, with financing that sources tell me could approach $2 billion and a major debt service to match in 2020 and beyond — limiting how much any cost savings can be invested into newspapers’ future. Financing in the merger must both pay off Gannett shareholders partly in cash and essentially refinance both companies’ debt. That debt, after cash on hand is subtracted, amounts to about another $1 billion,” said media expert Ken Doctor, in a column two days before the merger was announced — and his outline of the deal was correct.

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