Hope may yet spring eternal for Tribune Publishing, the newspaper company that in February struck a $635 million deal with Alden Global Capital, the hedge fund notorious for acquiring local papers and then gutting them. Two wealthy bidders have submitted a $680 million rival offer to buy Tribune, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday, a fully financed deal superior to Alden’s proposal that, if successful, could save papers within the Tribune portfolio—including the Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News, and The Baltimore Sun—from certain decimation. The white knights behind the alternate bid, Maryland hotel executive Stewart Bainum and Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, are together said to have committed more than $600 million of their own money for the effort, which valued Tribune at $18.50 a share, compared to Alden’s proposal of $17.25.
After the Journal reported that Tribune was leaning toward the offer, the board on Monday issued a statement saying that the nonbinding deal proposed by Newslight, Bainum and Wyss’ group, “would reasonably be expected to lead to a ‘Superior Proposal’ as defined in Tribune’s merger agreement with affiliates of Alden Global Capital LLC.” That determination “allows Tribune to engage in discussions and negotiations with, and provide diligence information to, Newslight,” the publisher said, but does not allow it “to terminate the Alden Merger Agreement or enter into any merger agreement with Newslight, Mr. Bainum or Mr. Wyss.” If Tribune accepts Newslight’s offer, Alden would then have four days to match the rival bid or receive a breakup fee, according to the Journal.
Journalists are crossing their fingers. “There is no more important issue for the @chicagotribune than escaping Alden,” Gregory Pratt, a City Hall reporter at the paper and president of its Guild, tweeted of the offer submitted by Newslight’s “civic minded bidders.” As my colleague Joe Pompeo reported back in February, Tribune’s agreement to sell Alden the two-thirds of the company it didn’t already own was ominous news for its employees, with Chicago Tribune reporter Todd Lighty calling it “really disheartening to be owned by someone who does not care about the journalism one iota.” Journalists within the Tribune portfolio had tried to avoid that fate, said Gary Marx, Lighty’s former colleague who took a severance package in January. “We did everything possible to try to find a responsible buyer for the newspaper and for Tribune Publishing as a whole,” he told Pompeo. “I feel like we did turn up the heat on Alden. We made it a national issue. But in the end, Alden, at least for now, got what they wanted,” Marx added, clearing the way for the hedge fund to hit distressed Tribune newsrooms with the kinds of cost-cutting measures that have ransacked so many others.
The eleventh-hour development would be a victory for local journalism, a struggling industry further crippled by predators like Alden, whose MediaNews Group now owns some 70 daily papers, many of which have reportedly seen newsroom staff cut by more than 75% over the past decade. “A few years ago no one knew who Alden was, and now they’re a brand name for destroying local media for their own profits,” NewsGuild president Jon Schleuss said. A nonprofit model for the industry has emerged in response, advanced by wealthy businessmen such as Bainum, who was initially set to buy The Baltimore Sun, his hometown paper, in a separate deal with Alden before negotiations snagged, leading to his revised bid for the full Tribune group. If that offer is accepted, Bainum reportedly plans to give control of the Sun to a nonprofit.
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