Dayhoff Soundtrack: Tribune Co. creditors court Michael Eisner and Jeff Shell for top jobs

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Tribune Co. creditors court Michael Eisner and Jeff Shell for top jobs

August 25, 2010

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/08/hold.html

Former Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Michael D. Eisner is in discussions that could lead to his return to the media spotlight – as chairman of the now-bankrupt Tribune Co.

The media company’s largest creditors are having preliminary conversations with prospective candidates who could operate Tribune once it emerges from bankruptcy, according to several people with knowledge of the situation.

Eisner, who has been dabbling in the digital world as an investor since stepping down from Disney in 2005, is among the candidates under consideration to replace Chicago real estate magnate Sam Zell as chairman of the reorganized company.

Discussions about new management at Tribune are still exploratory, people close to one of the creditors cautioned. Senior creditors can’t make changes until a plan is in place allowing the company to emerge from its nearly two-year legal morass.

Tribune owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, KTLA-TV Channel 5 and 22 other TV stations and six newspapers.

Under one scenario being discussed by the senior creditors, Eisner, who is 68, would be joined by Jeff Shell, a former News Corp. cable executive who is now in top management at Comcast Corp., according to four people with knowledge of the talks. Shell would become chief executive of Tribune, replacing Randy Michaels.

Eisner was unavailable for comment, according to his spokeswoman. But he told Variety in a wide-ranging interview Monday that he has been accumulating Tribune debt. “You are talking to somebody who is buying debt in the Tribune Co. The salvation of the newspaper is some kind of pay arrangement [online], which will evolve into something significant,” Eisner said in the interview.

Shell, 44, a Los Angeles native who runs Comcast’s cable channels group from the company’s headquarters in Philadelphia, declined to comment. Earlier in his career, Shell worked for Disney on the strategic planning staff when Eisner ran the company.

Tribune and its creditors are still struggling to negotiate a settlement around charges that Zell’s 2007 leveraged buyout was a case of "fraudulent conveyance," meaning the transaction rendered the company insolvent from Day One. That settlement would serve as the basis for a plan of reorganization, but depending on how negotiations go, it could be months in coming or the case could easily devolve into litigation... http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/08/hold.html

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