Zell To Buy Tribune Co. For $8.2 Billion
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Tribune Co., owner of the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, plans to go private by selling itself for $8.2 billion to billionaire Sam Zell and employees of the company.
Chicago-based Tribune, which spent six months looking for a buyer, chose a deal with a local investor rather than a similar offer from California businessmen Ron Burkle and Eli Broad. The company will take on $8.4 billion in debt to fund the $34-a-share offer. Mr. Zell said he will pay down debt by selling the Chicago Cubs baseball team.
“This looks to be about as good a deal as Tribune was going to get, and gives them the comfort of being acquired by a fellow Chicagoan,” an independent newspaper analyst in Silver Spring, Maryland, John Morton, said. “Investors have to be relieved.”
