Tribune sale hinges on LA Times owner
AS the battle to buy New York Daily News owner Tribune Publishing heats up, pressure is expected to mount for Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times who holds the key to any sale due to his 24-percent stake in Chicago-based Tribune.
The company’s third-largest shareholder, Mason Slaine, who owns a stake of roughly 3.4 percent, has already said he plans to throw his lot in with a bid led by Stewart Bainum. The hotel mogul has submitted an $18.50-a-share offer that values the publisher of the Chicago Tribune, the Daily News, The Baltimore Sun and six other daily papers at $680 million.
Heath Freeman’s Alden Global Capital, by contrast, has offered $17.25 a share in a deal that values the company at $630 million. Unlike Slaine’s deal, the details of which are still emerging, Alden’s offer has already been vetted and approved by Tribune’s board.
“I think Patrick will side with whichever offer will pay him the most money,” said a source familiar with Soon-Shiong, a biotech executive who bought the LA Times and a handful of other California papers from Tribune for $500 million in 2018.
But others think Soon-Shiong’s continued silence may be a sign he has reservations about signing on to a deal to back Alden, a hedge fund that has gained a reputation as a “destroyer” of local newspapers due to deep cuts it has made to newspapers it controls via its MediaNews Group.
A spokeswoman for SoonShiong on Thursday said he had no comment on the latest battle for control of Tribune, which gets more heated by the day.
For example, news broke last weekend that Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, who made his fortune by selling medical-device maker Synthes to Johnson & Johnson in 2012 for more than $20 billion, would team up with Bainum in a bid. Tribune shares jumped on the news to a Monday high of $18.13 a share, up from $17.25 last Friday.
Slaine, former co-owner of FT Media Holdings, then jumped into the fray Tuesday, saying he would also be backing Bainum with the hope of buying Tribune’s Florida papers: the Orlando Sentinel and the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Tribune shares closed Thursday at $18.03.
Each of the billionaires have said they would be willing to invest $100 million of their money. In addition, New York investor and Shareholder Forum head Gary Lutin revealed that he is the mystery bidder seeking to buy Tribune’s Allentown Morning Call for $30 million to $40 million.
To get Tribune approval of its $17.25-a-share offer, Alden must secure two-thirds of the vote of the non-Alden Trib shareholders.
“Soon-Shiong essentially has a potential veto on the Alden deal,” said a source close to a Tribuneboard special committee of outside directors who last month recommended that shareholders accept the Alden offer.
Committee members have so far not changed their recommendation, but that could change when the Bainum deal, which appears to still be coming together, is finalized.
Soon-Shiong, who bought into Tribune at around $11 a share, certainty appears to be in a winning spot. And his newspaper assets could certainly use the cash infusion if he chooses to share the wealth.
At a virtual town hall on Thursday, which Soon-Shiong did not attend, Chris Argentieri, who oversees Soon-Shiong’s California Times newspaper business, revealed that the company suffered losses of north of $50 million in 2020. When Soon-Shiong bought the LA Times, San Diego Union-Tribune and some smaller weeklies for $500 million, sources said it was making $50 million a year.
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