PUBLISHING

TRIBUNE WILL BUY BACK $2B IN STOCK; SHARES SOAR Tribune Company, the second-largest American newspaper publisher, will spend $2 billion buying back a quarter of its shares and plans to sell some assets to bolster a stock price that has fallen 23% in a year.

The news sent the shares up as much as 9.1%, the most in more than six years. The Chicago-based company said in a statement today that it will buy 10 million shares from the McCormick Tribune and Cantigny Foundations, affiliates that hold 13.6% of its stock, and the rest from other investors.

Tribune, owner of the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune newspapers and operator of 26 television stations, is among publishers responding to shareholder concerns about sliding stock prices.Advertisers are shifting budgets to the Internet, hurting newspaper and TV revenue. Knight Ridder is selling itself to McClatchy Company for $4.5 billion, while Dow Jones & Company and New YorkTimes Company have cut jobs after investor complaints.

– Bloomberg News

EARNINGS

FREDDIE MAC 2005 EARNINGS FALL TO $2.1B Mortgage finance giant Freddie Mac, emerging from an accounting scandal, reported yesterday that its income slid to $2.1 billion last year from $2.9 billion in 2004 as it paid to settle a suit by shareholders and took charges related to Hurricane Katrina.

The government-sponsored company, which is the second-largest buyer and guarantor of home mortgages in the country, said that the $600 million or so of costs it incurred also stemmed from accounting changes. Earnings per share were $2.75, down from $3.94 in 2004.

– Associated Press