Sources: Tribune Publishing may have new suitor

A deal that would reshape the American newspaper industry has run into complications a month after an agreement was reached, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

As a result, New York hedge fund Alden Global Capital may have to fend off a new suitor for Tribune Publishing, the chain that owns major metropolitan dailies across the country, including The Chicago Tribune, Sun Sentinel and The Baltimore Sun, the people said.

On Feb. 16, Alden, the largest shareholder in Tribune Publishing, with a 32% stake, reached an agreement to buy the rest of the chain in a deal that valued the company at $630 million. In the deal, Alden would take ownership of all the Tribune Publishing papers — and then spin off the Sun and two smaller Maryland papers at a price of $65 million to a nonprofit organization controlled by Maryland hotel magnate Stewart Bainum Jr.

In recent days, Bainum and Alden have found themselves at loggerheads over details of the operating agreements that would be in effect as the Maryland papers transitioned from one owner to another, the people said. In response, Bainum has taken a preliminary step toward making a bid for all of Tribune Publishing, the people said.

Bainum has asked the

Tribune Publishing special committee, a group made up of three independent board members, for permission to be released from a nondisclosure agreement prohibiting him from discussing the deal, so that he would be able to pursue partners for a new bid, the people said.

A spokeswoman for Bainum said he had no comment. Through a spokesman, Tribune Publishing’s special committee declined to comment. An Alden spokesman had no comment.

E. JASON WAMBSGANS/CHICAGO TRIBUNE 2019 Tribune Publishing counts the Chicago Tribune among its assets.