The New York Times is reporting that billionaire Hansjörg Wyss has terminated his bid for Tribune Publishing. Wyss and Stewart Bainum had filed an alternative proposal to counter Alden Global Capital’s merger offer.
Stewart Bainum is chairman of Maryland based Choice Hotels. Hansjörg Wyss is a Swiss billioniare who lives in Wyoming. He is worth $6 billion, according to Forbes. Together, they control an entity called Newslight through which they made a non-binding proposal for all outstanding shares of Tribune stock for $18.50 per share. While that was above Alden’s $17.25 per share, Tribune’s Special Committee of their Board still recommended the Alden Merger Proposal. Specifically, the Newslight proposal was nonbinding and assumed usage of $40 million more of Tribune cash than the Alden Merger Agreement. Also, the Special Committee pointed to questions about Wyss’ interest considering he only jumped in recently.
With Wyss sidelining himself, this may clear the path for the Tribune-Alden merger. According to the Times, sources say Wyss decided to not pursue Tribune after examining the company’s finances in the past few days. Bainum and Wyss had entered a due diligence period to review this data.
Even more interesting, the Times states that Wyss had envisioned turning Tribune’s flagship Chicago Tribune into a national publication.
Potential U.S. Newspaper Powerhouse
Alden owns MediaNewsGroup, which operates 200 publications. Titles include the Denver Post, Mercury News, Orange County Register and Boston Herald.
Tribune, briefly known as tronc, is a media company which owns local media businesses in eight markets. Tribune newspapers include the Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Baltimore Sun and Orlando Sentinel.
Together, Tribune and Alden would control media properties in half of the top 10 markets in the United States. This includes the three biggest DMAs in the country, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
Key Vote
The Alden-Tribune deal will need shareholder approval. Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong will hold a powerful set of cards as he controls 25% of Tribune stock.
Dr. Soon-Shiong hasn’t commented, but did say last month that “newspapers are important to the community.” That was in response to a Wall Street Journal report that he was trying to unload the newspapers he owns, The Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union-Tribune.
According to the Tribune proxy report, Dr. Soon-Shiong had discussions with Mason Slaine regarding selling his Tribune shares to Slaine. Slaine is an existing Tribune stockholder who owned approximately 7.9% of the outstanding shares of the publishing company. However, the transaction never occurred.
