A hedge fund that owns a large stake in Tribune Publishing Co.
TPCO 0.31%
according to people familiar with the matter, he wants to include the newspaper chain behind titles, including the Chicago Tribune and New York Daily News.
Alden Global Capital LLC, which is already Tribune’s largest shareholder with a 32% stake, could announce an offer for the company as early as Thursday. Details about the potential bid could not be learned.
Tribune has a market value of about $ 470 million after a year-long slide, as the outlook for local newspapers weakens. Its shares have changed little this year, closing at $ 12.79 on Wednesday.
An agreement would have far-reaching consequences for an industry through sharp declines in revenue over the past twenty years, leading to a wave of consolidation and cost cutting. Between 2008 and 2019, the industry shrugged off 51% of its editorial posts, according to the Pew Research Center.
Tribune Publishing, one of the largest newspaper chains in the country in circulation, publishes nine dailies on the larger market, including the Baltimore Sun, Orlando Sentinel and Hartford Courant.
Alden manages MediaNews Group, a privately held company that owns approximately 60 dailies across the country, including the Denver Post, San Jose Mercury News and Orange County Register. The hedge fund has the reputation of making deep cost reductions in the costs it acquires.
In July, Alden secured a firmer position on the Tribune board and took control of a third seat out of seven, in exchange for an agreement to extend a standstill agreement that would prevent the hedge fund from increasing its stake. or to make a hostile bid until after June 2021..
Consequently, any agreement to increase the interest will likely have to be signed off by Tribune or a significant portion of the shareholders not affiliated with Alden. The company’s second largest shareholder, with about 25%, is Patrick Soon-Shiong, a billionaire biotechnology investor who bought the Los Angeles Times in 2018 for $ 500 million from Tribune.
Tribune has fired dozens of reporters and shut down many of its newsrooms altogether to save on real estate costs, as the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic has been dispelled. Earlier in December, Tribune agreed to sell its e-commerce business, Best Reviews, to Nexstar Media Group Inc.
for $ 160 million.
Write to Cara Lombardo at [email protected], Dana Cimilluca at [email protected] and Lukas I. Alpert at [email protected]
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In the print edition, it appears on 31 December 2020 as ‘Fund wants to buy Tribune chain in full’.