April 4, 2007
Written by Kahtarine Q. Seelye and Andrew Ross Sorkin
Tribune Accepts Real Estate Magnate's Bid
[Editor's note: It doesn't take a rocket-scientist to determine why Zionists control presidential candidates and the media: they put their money where their mouths are. They buy candidates, newspapers and television stations. For some reason the people who oppose Zionism don't do these things and while it is unethical to buy a candidate for office, it's perfectly permissible to fund candidates that will fight for truth and America first. But the wealthy in our ranks, with a few exceptions, don't bother. Even more serious is the failure to buy into the media. Where were the Arab-American entrepreneurs when it came to bidding for the media outlets which the unsavory Sam Zell has just acquired? Nowhere to be found. Putin in Russia has obstructed Zionist monopoly ownership of the media but in America "our" government of course favors the monopoly, because U.S. government officials have been purchased by the same Zionist money that buys up the major media. As long as the people who purport to be on the side of truth are too "frugal" (to put it charitably) and too disorganized to make a play for media owership, Americans will continue to have their minds washed, and we will have only ourselves to blame.
The latest buy-up may also be a case of Zionist revenge. Historically, the Chicago Tribune has been a populist and revisionist newspaper. The McCormack paper editorialized against American entry into World War II and employed fearless investigative reporters like my journalism mentor, the late Walter Trohan, who was the first to break the story that the attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was needless and that the Japanese had been ready to surrender since 1943. The Los Angeles Times has also sometimes taken a line independent of Israeli hasbara (propaganda) and continues, as of this writing, to employ a few independent-minded reporters at high levels, in contrast with the New York Times, whose top foreign correspondents are Steven R. Weisman, Steven Erlanger and Michael R. Gordon, all of whom "report" on the Middle East. Undoubtedly Zell will seek to impose similar personnel on his newly acquired "properties." -- Michael A. Hoffman II]
Sam Zell, a flamboyant Chicago real estate tycoon who has never run a newspaper, has won the battle of the billionaires for the Tribune Company, meeting the company's demand for a higher bid to match one from Ronald W. Burkle and Eli Broad.
Tribune announced that its stockholders will receive $34 a share, or $8.2 billion. Mr. Zell is supporting the deal with a $315 million investment and will join the board. The centerpiece of his proposal is a complex financial structure known as an employee stock ownership plan, which is to pay for much of the deal. Separately, the company announced that it will sell the Chicago Cubs after this season.
The sale closes a contentious 10-month chapter in the 160-year history of the storied Tribune Company, which occupies the landmark Tribune Tower in downtown Chicago and owns The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune and other newspapers, and 23 television stations.
It also ends the financial stake in Tribune of two great American newspaper dynasties: the McCormicks, whose patriarch, Colonel Robert R. McCormick, founded Tribune in 1847; and the Chandlers, whose patriarch, General Harrison Gray Otis, founded Times Mirror in 1884 and who became the biggest shareholder in Tribune when Tribune bought Times Mirror in 2000. meander
The long drawn-out auction, which seemed to meander as few credible bids emerged and the Tribune raised the idea of refinancing itself, suddenly accelerated over the weekend as the company pressed Mr. Zell to at least match the $34 a share offer from Mr. Broad and Mr. Burkle.
Mr. Zell, 65, the son of refugees who fled Poland on the eve of Hitler's invasion, is a self-made billionaire who has thrived on buying up distressed businesses. What he plans to do with Tribune is not clear. He has said he would leave current management in place and that his interest was not editorial but economic. Some employees fear that he could continue paring down the company, which has cut staff and costs over the last few years as its newspapers, along with many others, have lost readers and advertisers to the Internet.
He has also said that he would not break up the company by selling off assets individually or spinning off the television stations. But he may have no choice. Any new owner faces regulatory hurdles that bar a newspaper publisher from owning broadcast outlets in the same market.
Tribune's purchase of Times Mirror, which owned The Los Angeles Times and Newsday, among other papers, was made with just such overlap in mind, so that Tribune could cross-promote the editorial and advertising functions of its newspapers and broadcast outlets. Tribune had success with such "synergy" in Chicago, but failed to duplicate it in its two other big markets, New York and Los Angeles.
The Chandlers complained publicly last June about Tribune's failed synergy and sagging stock price and set in motion the auction that ended last night.
Most newspaper companies have seen their stock price plummet in the last few years; Tribune closed Friday at $32.11, having edged up in the last week in anticipation that a sale would pay big dividends. But it is down from its all-time high of $60.88 in November 1999.
People close to the negotiations said that while Mr. Burkle and Mr. Broad had initially offered more money than Mr. Zell, company executives wanted the company to go to Mr. Zell. He had been in talks longer and the details of his proposal had already been worked out. To accept the Broad-Burkle bid would almost certainly have delayed any announcement of a sale, which the company had said it wanted to make by the end of March, which was Saturday.
Perhaps more importantly, people close to the talks said, the board was disinclined to sell the company to anyone with ties to Los Angeles because of bad blood between Tribune and The Los Angeles Times. Their two cultures never meshed, and The Times, the fourth biggest paper in the country, perceived itself as better than the company's hometown paper, The Chicago Tribune. Last year, Tribune forced out The Times's publisher and editor after they publicly resisted proposed staff cuts.
Mr. Zell grew up in Chicago and has lived there most of his life. But his own style is anathema to any corporate culture. He makes a point of dressing casually, in contrast to his more conservatively dressed competitors, and he is fond of whimsical touches. Outside his office is a sculpture of a man tied up in red tape. In case anyone misses the point, a label reads: "bureaucrat." On the deck outside his office he keeps two live, large non-flying ducks.
Each year he sends hundreds of friends and colleagues music boxes, with lyrics reflecting his latest insights about the real estate industry or the economy. He also owns some expensive contemporary art, including paintings by David Hockney and Frank Stella.
In 2004, The Chicago Tribune startled many people in the real estate industry by uncovering a 1976 criminal case in which Mr. Zell was charged with defrauding the Internal Revenue Service in a deal involving an apartment building in Reno, Nev. Charges against him were dropped after he agreed to testify against his brother-in-law, who went to prison.
In an interview in December 2004 with The New York Times, after The Tribune's revelations, Mr. Zell suggested that he did not have a high opinion of journalists.
"I started out as a kid thinking that reporters are out there to do good, to expose the world to the truth," he said in an interview in his office. "Over the years I've gotten a lot smarter. I've gotten a lot thicker skin."
Source: New York Times
Posted to: Ziopedia