Despite recession, younger Borg prospers

Despite all the blows the newspaper industry and The Record and its employees have taken in the last few years, Publisher Stephen A. Borg continues to prosper. His infamous statement when he first met the newspaper's staff in mid-2006 -- "I'm not in this for the money" -- was an arrogant and clumsy attempt to distract them from one of his real goals as he assumed the helm from his father.

Borg is not only publisher of  The Record and Herald News, he also is president of privately held North Jersey Media Group, replacing Jon Markey, who announced his retirement in a bulletin board notice in December 2007. Friends of Markey say he was forced out after 15 years with the company so Borg, who was 41 then, could take his title and salary.

You may remember how Borg in 2006 showed The Record staff a slide of  his home on Birchwood Place in  Tenafly. What he didn't tell us was that the house was worth close to $2 million. He bought it in December 1999 with an $865,000 mortgage from the Bergen Record Corp. and sold it less than eight years later, in August 2007, for $2 million, according to public records.

Did Borg even make mortgage payments? If you think the $2 million was used to pay off the mortgage, with the remainder as a down payment on his new Tenafly home -- listed as an "estate" having 8,500 square feet, with six bedrooms and five full baths -- you'd be wrong. The home on Churchill Place was described as being on an acre "in the most prestigious section of Tenafly."

In September 2007, Borg bought the house with a mortgage of $3,650,000 -- the full price -- from his employer,  his family's North Jersey Media Group Inc., according to records of the New Jersey Multiple Listing Service. (About two months later, Markey was forced out so Borg could take his salary, according to friends.)

This is the house Rich Gigli was asked to photograph after The Record gave walking papers to the assistant managing editor of photography, who had around 30 years of service. Presumably, a painting made from the photo now hangs over the fireplace, where Borg, wife Monica and their children will be gathering for the holidays.

In last week's letter to retirees, NJMG Chairman "Mac" Borg -- Stephen's indulgent father -- doesn't say how many people will be affected by the cutback in medical benefits. But I'll bet that if the son had gotten his own mortgage, the $3.65 million tied up by his opulent lifestyle would have eased the pain considerably for retirees. Or, better yet, why couldn't Stephen Borg be satisfied with spending a few hundred grand on renovating and expanding the $2 million house he already owned?

"Mac" Borg has been listed among the 400 wealthiest Americans by Forbes magazine. Stephen and Jennifer Borg, the older sister who is an NJMG vice president and general counsel, hold themselves out as young sophisticates, having invested money in a wine bar in Englewood; hopefully, that came from their inflated salaries at Mac Daddy's company, not from NJMG. They and their father probably feel they own the world. They certainly act as if they own their employees, even after they've left The Record.

See prior post: "Mac delivers bad news to retirees."