Trib Could Split into Two Companies

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

Link.

 

The Tribune proposal would spin off most or all of the company's 23 television stations into a new company, one that perhaps would include the Cubs. Most of the 11 daily newspapers would remain in the existing company.

 

The only pure sale apparently in the offing is for two Connecticut papers -- The Advocate of Stamford and the Greenwich Times.

 

Gannett Inc., the nation's largest newspaper publisher and owner of USA Today, is expected to acquire both papers from Tribune for about $85 million, or substantially more if it also buys real estate connected to the papers, said one individual familiar with negotiations. Gannett could realize cost savings by combining printing, circulation and other operations at the two papers with its dailies in Norwich, Conn., and Westchester County, N.Y.

[texascub]

New company means new owner/board of directors most likely. Lets hope that they don't go back into a payroll cut and screw us over again.

[Amazing_Grace]

I don't think this is very good news because it still puts the Cubs in the hands of a corporate board who will care more about bottom lines than baseball. Furthermore, it will be a smaller corporation with, presumably, more limited finances.

 

The best case scenario for our championship hopes would be an outright sale of the team to some rich guy who wants the legacy of being the guy that brought the Cubs a title.

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

It's still possible the broadcast company could spin the Cubs off in a separate deal.

[texascub]

It's still possible the broadcast company could spin the Cubs off in a separate deal.

 

Cue the Mark Cuban rumors again...

[Ivy Walls]

This is a big destructive dysfunctional power play within a family no different than a rich family feud that spends money and other lives foolishly.

 

The trouble is the Tribune Co is now a distressed company with valuation that undervalues its market and revenue potential. The current strategy is meant to pay off the CA Times Mirror family and attempt to structure the company to find a private equity partner to go private. By splitting the company into a broadcast companies (and Cubs) and the newspaper business it allows the two new groups to be sold into different PE strategies.

 

The newspaper could be sold at a discount in a ever diminishing marketplace and the broadcast properties to form a new Tribune Co.

 

The prize is that then the Cubs could be sold off to another PE group for cash and reinvest into a new broadcast company.

 

As for the Cubs I do not think they will ever go back to cheap no different than the NYY, NYM, Bos, LAD, SFG.

 

The thing is a PE ownership is much more capable of thinking of valuation then quarterly revenues and stock value.

[satxcubfan]

It's still possible the broadcast company could spin the Cubs off in a separate deal.

 

Cue the Mark Cuban rumors again...

 

<<<<<<<<< :D

[Amazing_Grace]

It's still possible the broadcast company could spin the Cubs off in a separate deal.

 

Cue the Mark Cuban rumors again...

 

Hence my reference to a rich guy looking for a legacy.