Zell Wins Tribune Co. Bidding Battle

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/zell_wins_tribune_co_bidding_battle/

Posted on Apr 2, 2007

After meeting well into the night Sunday, the Tribune Co. board of directors agreed to sell the company to Chicago-based billionaire Sam Zell for an estimated $8.2 billion. According to the Los Angeles Times, Zell’s bid trumped last-minute offers from L.A. moguls Ron Burkle and Eli Broad.

L.A. Times

Billionaire real estate mogul Sam Zell has reached an agreement to buy Tribune Co.—owner of the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, KTLA-TV Channel 5 and the Chicago Cubs baseball team—a source with knowledge of the deal said this morning.

The deal, probably worth close to $8 billion not including Tribune’s nearly $5 billion of existing debt, would put a 65-year-old entrepreneur famed for turning around troubled properties at the helm of the nation’s third largest newspaper chain and one of its largest conglomerations of television stations.

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