LA weekly reveals ownership, Dean Erwin Chemerinsky might invest

Earlier this week, LA Weekly, after being purchased by a new owner, fired its entire editorial staff, and left about four employees remaining at the company. A perhaps, surprising, aspect of the sale was that the buyer was entity known as Semanal media. Semanal media was a corporation created specifically for the purchase of LA Weekly, but the investors behind the company refused to identify themselves. After pressure, the investors have now revealed who they are. The L.A. Weekly group is made up Brian Calle, formerly of the Southern California News Group; David Welch, an L.A.-based attorney; Kevin Xu, a philanthropist and investor; Steve Mehr, an attorney and investor; Paul Makarechian, a boutique hotel developer; Mike Mugel, a real estate redeveloper; and Andy Bequer, a Southern California–based investor. In a quite surprising turn of events, LA Weekly states that Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Berkeley’s law school and author of textbooks on Constitutional law, also plans to invest.