More money for Madoff victims

Victims of Bernard Madoff, the architect of one of Wall Street’s largest frauds, will receive another $504 million, proceeds from assets that the government seized after Madoff’s financial firm collapsed a decade ago.

With this distribution, the second in a series of payouts, about 21,000 victims will have received a total of more than $1.2 billion, the Justice Department said. The payments were made by the Madoff Victim Fund, a government entity created to help people who lost money when Madoff’s long-running Ponzi scheme unraveled.

The government said it could return more than $4 billion to victims who lost their savings to Madoff and his firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. But that number is still small compared with the imaginary profits the firm had promised investors and the real losses it incurred.

Madoff’s estimated losses were about $65 billion in paper wealth and $17.5 billion in cash.

Civic group wants to buy Denver Post

A Colorado civic group is spearheading an effort to buy The Denver Post, which on Sunday excoriated its owner, a New York hedge fund, in its opinion section by saying, “Denver deserves a newspaper owner who supports its newsroom.”

The group, Together for Colorado Springs, said it had begun contacting potential investors in the state, who have so far pledged $10 million to the effort. The current owner, Alden Global Capital, has cut costs and shrunk the newsroom staff.

— Bulletin wire reports