Chicago Tribune’s owner weighing offer

Less than two months after selling the Los Angeles

Times, Tronc is weighing a private equity firm’s offer to buy the Chicago Tribune and the rest of its newspaper holdings, sources close to the company said Wednesday.

A bid of between $19 and $20 per share is on the table, according to sources. That represents about a 33 percent premium to the stock’s $14.77 per share closing price Tuesday, and a total offer that could be upward of $700 million for the entire company.

Tronc spokesman Marisa Kollias declined to comment Wednesday. The company is releasing its second-quarter earnings after the market closes today.

The Chicago-based newspaper chain, formerly known as Tribune Publishing, completed the $500 million sale of the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union-Tribune to biotech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong in June, leaving it a smaller but virtually debt-free company.

In addition to the Chicago Tribune, Tronc’s other major daily newspapers include the Baltimore Sun, Hartford Courant, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida’s Sun Sentinel and the New York Daily News, which it bought last year for $1 and the assumption of operational and pension liabilities.

Last month, Tronc laid off about half of the editorial staff at the Daily News in a cost-cutting move.