INSIDE: Swiss billionaire joins with hotelier in bidding for Tribune Publishing. News 30

An octogenarian Swiss billionaire who makes his home in Wyoming and has donated hundreds of millions to environmental causes is a surprise new player in the bidding for Tribune Publishing, the major newspaper chain that until recently seemed destined to be owned by a New York hedge fund.

Hansjörg Wyss, the former

CEO of medical device manufacturer Synthes, said Friday that he had agreed to join with Maryland hotelier Stewart Bainum Jr. in a bid for Tribune Publishing, an offer that could upend Alden Global Capital’s plan to take full ownership of the company.

Wyss, who has given away some of his fortune to help preserve wildlife habitats in Wyoming, Montana and Maine, said he was motivated to join the Tribune bid by his belief in the need for a robust press.

“I have an opportunity to do 500 times more than what I’m doing now,” he said.

Alden, which already owns roughly 32% of Tribune Publishing shares, is known for drastically cutting costs at the newspapers it controls. Last month, the hedge fund reached an agreement with Tribune, whose papers include the New York Daily News, the Baltimore Sun and the Chicago Tribune, to buy the rest of the company’s shares at $17.25 apiece.

Under that plan, Bainum agreed to establish a nonprofit group that would buy the Sun and two other Tribune-owned Maryland newspapers from Alden for $65 million. Soon after that agreement was reached, however, negotiations between Bainum and Alden stalled. That prompted Bainum, chair of Choice Hotels International, one of the world’s largest hotel chains, to make a bid March 16 for all of Tribune, beating Alden’s number with an offer of $18.50 a share.

That bid valued the company at about $650 million. The Alden agreement valued Tribune at roughly $630 million.

Tribune was not swayed by Bainum’s offer. A securities filing Tuesday revealed that the company’s board recommended that shareholders approve the Alden bid. At the same time, the Tribune board gave Bainum the go-ahead to pursue financing for his higher bid.

He has done just that by teaming with Wyss, who said he planned to own the company’s flagship paper while he and Bainum seek benefactors for Tribune’s seven other metro dailies.

Bainum declined to comment. A spokesperson for three members of Tribune’s board not affiliated with Alden declined to comment. A spokesperson for Alden did not immediately reply to a request for comment.