20070402 Baltimore Sun parent company sells to Zell

Baltimore Sun parent company sells to Zell

April 2, 2007

The Baltimore Sun is carrying a story:

“The parent of The Sun, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Cubs announced today that it is selling itself to real estate mogul Sam Zell.”

[…]

The sale is the latest transformation for The Sun, which was founded by the Abell family in 1837. And it comes as the media industry is beset by a steady decline in advertising revenue and circulation.

Times Mirror Co. purchased The Sun, the former Evening Sun and WMAR-TV in 1986 from the A.S. Abell Co. for $600 million. In 2000, Tribune acquired Times Mirror, which also owned the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers, in a deal valued at $8 billion in cash, stock and debt.

[…]

Theodore G. Venetoulis, a publisher and former Baltimore County executive who has been leading a local group interested in buying The Sun, said last week he is still hopeful that Tribune's new owner would have to shed some properties to pay down debt.

Venetoulis, Abell Foundation President Robert C. Embry Jr. and other unnamed civil leaders emerged as potential buyers for The Sun as Tribune put itself up for sale in September under pressure from its largest shareholder, the Chandler family. Venetoulis said the group has approached all potential buyers of Tribune to express its interest in purchasing The Sun from them should a deal go through.

Editor and Publisher has more details here: “It's Official: Tribune to Zell -- But Cubbies Not Sam's Club,” by Mark Fitzgerald.

“CHICAGO Tribune Co. is going private in a deal engineered by Chicago real estate tycoon Sam Zell that will give shareholders $34 a share in a two-stage transaction, the media giant announced Monday.”

The Tribune web site is carrying this story: “Tribune to Go Private for $34 Per Share.”

CHICAGO, April 2, 2007 -- With the completion of its strategic review process, Tribune Company (NYSE:TRB) today announced a transaction which will result in the company going private and Tribune shareholders receiving $34 per share. Sam Zell is supporting the transaction with a $315 million investment. Shareholders will receive their consideration in a two-stage transaction.

The Los Angeles Times is carrying its own unique take on the matter: “Real estate magnate wins bidding for Tribune.”

The deal represents the second potential sale in a little more than a year of one of the nation's top newspaper operators. McClatchy Co. of Sacramento bought Knight Ridder Inc., previously the second-largest chain by circulation, in March 2006. But McClatchy's subsequent swoon on the stock market – and Tribune's trouble finding a buyer, despite its roster of marquee assets – became emblematic of the decline plaguing old media companies trying to compete with the Internet.

The transaction would … would turn the 160-year-old Tribune and its flagship Chicago Tribune … over to a quirky businessman whose previous investments have not had nearly such a high public profile.

And the deal would effectively liberate the Chandler family of California – owners of the Los Angeles Times for more than a century – from a newspaper business with which they have become disillusioned. For the second time in seven years, the Chandlers helped push The Times into the hands of new, Chicago-based owners.

In 2000, the pioneering Los Angeles family sold its control of Times Mirror Co. to Tribune…

[…]

Zell, a maverick who fancies Ducati motorcyles, leather jackets and rousing games of paintball, had himself not entered the bidding until early February, after Tribune's deadline for offers.

Reading the rest of the Los Angeles Times piece is worth your time. Click here: “Real estate magnate wins bidding for Tribune.”

(Note: I have a free-lance contract with Patuxent newspapers: “The Baltimore Sun Co., which has 1,550 employees, owns The Sun and several weekly community newspapers in the region through its Patuxent Publishing Co. and Homestead Publishing Co. divisions….”

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