St Petersberg Times – A New York hedge fund wrested control of the Creative Loafing newspaper chain Tuesday, promising to keep the weekly tabloids running in Tampa, Sarasota, Atlanta, Chicago, Charlotte, N.C., and Washington, D.C.

In a bankruptcy auction in Tampa, Atalaya Capital Management’s $5 million bid blew away the field. Creative Loafing’s longtime owners, the Eason family, opened the bidding by offering $2.32 million, but didn’t counter when Atalaya upped the ante.

Ben Eason, effectively removed as chief executive of the chain Tuesday, vowed to start afresh this week with a new online publication based in Tampa. Eason had run family publications for close to 20 years.

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Tags: atalaya capital management, bankruptcy auction, chief-executive, hedge fund

Chicago Sun-Times – The Chicago Reader, the local alternative weekly, is now under the control of Atalaya Capital Management, a New York-based hedge fund with no previous experience running newspapers.

At a bankruptcy auction in Tampa on Tuesday, Atalaya successfully bid $5 million for the Reader and five other alternative weeklies that comprise the Tampa-based Creative Loafing Inc. alternative newspaper chain. Atalaya beat out Creative Loafing CEO Ben Eason for control of the six newspaper properties.

Creative Loafing got into debt trouble when it borrowed roughly $40 million in 2007 to buy the Reader and the Washington (D.C.) City Paper — $30 million of it reportedly from Atalaya. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September 2008.

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Tags: alternative weeklies, atalaya capital management, bankruptcy auction, capital-management, chapter 11 bankruptcy, chicago reader, debt trouble, hedge fund

West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Encouraged by a promising investment environment and accelerated investment pace, New York-based special opportunities fund, Atalaya Capital Management LP, today announced that it has expanded its team, adding three investment professionals and a marketing professional. 

“Recent positive changes in our target investment markets have prompted Atalaya to bolster our professional platform in order to capitalize on market conditions and new opportunities,” said Ivan Q. Zinn, Founding Partner & Chief Investment Officer.

Josh Ufberg joined as a Principal from Goldman Sachs’ Special Situations Group, while Rana Mitra and Alex Wang have joined the team responsible for the sourcing and purchase of private credit assets as Senior Associate and Associate, respectively. Ashley Fochtman joined the Firm as a Vice President and will be working in a business development capacity.  Previously, Ms. Fochtman worked in hedge fund marketing and at Goldman Sachs as an energy derivatives analyst.

Founded by Mr. Zinn in 2006, Atalaya focuses on the opportunistic purchase of senior secured credit from forced sellers, failed financial institutions and sellers in need of liquidity such as banks, commercial finance companies, and other financial and investment institutions.

About Atalaya Capital Management

Atalaya Capital Management is an alternative investment firm focused on investing in small and middle market credit opportunities.  Since inception in early 2006, the Firm has successfully invested over $1 billion through (1) the opportunistic purchase of private, senior secured credit from forced sellers, failed financial institutions and sellers in need of liquidity, and (2) proprietary ‘new issue’ credit investments including DIP loans and other senior secured financings.

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