Rustic Canyon Sells Part of Its Portfolio To Give Liquidity To Chandler Family, Its LP
This story was written by Rafat Ali.
A crazy but true story, along with a strange co-incidence: Rustic Canyon (RC), one of the largest VC firms in Southern California and invested in a bunch of digital media companies, has sold off a part of its portfolio to Saints Capital, a San Francisco-based VC firm which specializes in such secondary acquisition of VC and PE investments. The two companies have formed a new fund, called Saints Rustic Canyon, L.P., which has purchased the interest of 19 different portfolio firms of Rustic Canyon Ventures, and a portion of eight other firms, structured as a strip purchase of 20 percent of RC's position in each of the companies.
That part was disclosed in the release the two companies put out. What they didn'ty is that Rustic Canyon's single limited partner is the Chandler Family Trust, the trust of the Chandler Familyformer owners of the Times Mirror Co., the parent firm of the Los Angeles Times before its acquisition by the Tribune Company. And they cashed out handsomely during Tribune's sale to Sam Zell's firm; and now, Tribune is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. This connection was picked up by SoCalTech earlier today.
By Rafat Ali