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."

'I'm not in this for the money'

When Stephen A. Borg took over as publisher of  The Record from his father, he called a meeting of the entire staff to introduce himself. No room in the four-story building on River Street in Hackensack was large enough, so it was standing room only when me and hundreds of others crammed ourselves into a second-floor space.

"I'm not in this for the money," said Borg, who was in his mid-30s. And then, in one of the most bizarre moments of my 29-year career at the newspaper, Borg projected a slide onto a screen to show us his home in Tenafly. It was an imposing mansion, painted white, with several columns in front.

I wondered what point he was trying to make. Was he so blinded by his privileged upbringing that he thought his home was modest, just like the ones many of his staff owned? I doubt that anyone else in that room in mid-2006, even top editors, owned a house as grandiose as young Borg's. I, for one, still lived in a cramped apartment on one of Englewood's noisiest streets.

Revealing personal details in a room full of poorly paid reporters is foolhardy. Soon, word circulated in the newsroom that Borg's house was worth nearly $2 million. But even that beautiful house wasn't good enough for Borg, his wife and children.

Many months later, Stephen Borg's mother called the head of The Record's photo department and asked him to take a photo of the young publisher's new house, a huge place with wings, also in Tenafly, so a painting could be made and placed over the fireplace.

Did Mrs. Borg know that Rich Gigli -- an assistant managing editor who ran the photo department and who had around 30 years' experience at The Record -- had been given his walking papers as part of a restructuring to cut costs?

When one photo staff member saw the photo, he speculated the new house cost $3 million to $4 million.

Borg grew up in a big house on the East Hill of Englewood, where his father, Malcolm A. Borg, still lives. Why did the younger Borg settle in Tenafly? Was he concerned about sending his young children to Englewood's segregated schools?