Tribune to Push Papers to Separate Company
It looks like the Tribune Company is ready to push their struggling newspapers to the back burner and focus on their TV business.
The LA Times writes that Tribune Co. announced plans Wednesday to spin off its beleaguered newspaper unit into a separate company, freeing the media conglomerate to focus on its more promising television and Internet properties.
The new entity, to be called Tribune Publishing Co., would include the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and six other daily papers. All other assets, including the company’s real estate holdings and stakes in several Internet sites, would remain part of Tribune Co.
The spinoff would be tax-free to Tribune shareholders and could take as long as a year to complete.
Other media companies, notably Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., have spun off their publishing units. The goal is to boost the stock market value of the broadcast properties by unshackling them from the newspapers, whose revenue has been declining sharply.
“Each will be a stronger company when separated from the other,” Peter Liguori, Tribune’s chief executive, said in a memo to employees. “… A company that is growing and succeeding on its own merits has a surer, clearer path forward, built on the ability to invest in and shape its own future.”
Until now, Tribune appeared to be taking steps to unload the newspapers in a private sale. In February, the company hired investment bankers to advise on a potential sale and vet potential buyers. Several prominent suitors, including industrialists Charles and David Koch, Murdoch and local philanthropist Eli Broad, have expressed interest, according to sources.
But the process has moved slowly and Tribune has yet to open the newspapers’ books to potential buyers. The papers still could be sold at any time and the idea of the spinoff abandoned.