Tribune bids to get serious

By Michael Oneal
Tribune staff reporter
Published November 20, 2006

The effort to sell Tribune Co. to the highest bidder will move into Round 2 next week, as preliminary suitors given a peek at the company's books decide whether to stay in the auction or pack their bags and go home.

Tribune management has spent most of November giving a grueling set of presentations to a select group of bidders who in late October made non-binding "expressions of interest" in buying the company whole. Now it is up to the bidders: a collection of private-equity firms, two Los Angeles billionaires and Gannett Co., the nation's largest newspaper publisher.

Will buyout models retooled with new, non-public information justify a set of firmer bids? Or will Tribune management have to move to Plan B: selling or spinning off some of the company's parts?

"We think there will be offers [for the whole company]," said one person with knowledge of management's thinking. "But you don't know anything until the fat lady sings."

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Round 2 in Tribune bidding
Mark Lacter' take on Tribune sale at LA Biz Observed can be read here.