Naples firm invests $14M in newspapers, buys 5% stake in Dallas Morning News

Naples businessman and philanthropist David Hoffmann has invested millions of dollars into hundreds of businesses. But rarely has an investment delivered as much national attention, surprise and all-around attaboys as the $14 million or so he and one of his business units, Fort Myers-based Hoffmann Media Group, recently made into buying shares of two separate publicly traded newspaper companies.

The buying surge started in late September and mid-October with Iowa-based Lee Enterprises, owner of the The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Buffalo News, among other publications. That was around a $12 to $13 million investment, says Hoffmann, in a series of stock purchases totaling some 9% of the company's shares. Next: Hoffmann, in an SEC disclosure form filed Nov. 14, announced it had bought 239,516 shares of DallasNews Corp., parent of The Dallas Morning News, for $1.31 million. That's about a 5% stake in the company. (All the shares were purchased by the Jerrilyn M. Hoffmann Revocable Trust; Jerri Hoffmann is Dave Hoffmann's wife.)