Score, face it the Cubs are in play. Put your jealously aside and ask what buyer would NOT want MacPhail involved? He knows more than anyone alive about this organziation and is currently unemployed. And, tell me what 12 year stretch for Cubs was more sucessful since 1908 that the 1994 to 2006 period? In answering this question, think of what is important to an owner (profits) and not a fan (wins). From an owner's standpoint, he was wildly scuessful. If he wants the team, Bain Capital et. al will line up down the block to fund him.
Maybe MacPhail's investor group does not get the Cubs. There not the only one interested. But whoever does get the Cubs would be crazy not have him as part of the deal. maybe not as a public face, but certainly as a McCaskey type behind the scenes making all the real decisions.
Score, see the article below, Tribco is a dying organziation. The status quo will not hold. Major changes are coming. The Chandlers are demanding it. Fitzsimmons is a lame duck.
The two properties out the door first are the LA Times and the Cubs. Why the Cubs at the top of the list? Becasue of the way MacPhail ran them.
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Did Tribune Blow Its Deadline?
Newspapers and Other Assets
May Pull in Less Than Expected
When Chandlers Pressed for Sale
By JULIA ANGWIN and SARAH ELLISON
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
November 3, 2006; Page C1
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1162522 ... jie/6month
When Tribune Co.'s biggest shareholder, the Chandler family, first began agitating publicly earlier this year for the media empire to be sold or broken up, they argued such a radical move was needed to lift the company's long-stagnant stock price.
The Chandlers cited Wall Street analysis to suggest the stock, which had been trading around $30, could be worth as much $42 to $46 in a breakup.
The Chandlers may soon be regretting those arguments. Now that Tribune has finally taken their advice, putting the company on the market, the situation isn't looking so bright. With conditions in the newspaper industry deteriorating rapidly, the consensus on Wall Street is that Tribune shareholders should expect a sale to generate no more than the $32-$33 level at which the stock has lately been trading.
Yesterday, a day after reports emerged that several private-equity groups had submitted preliminary bids valuing Tribune in the "low $30s," Tribune stock fell 1.1% to $32.26 on the New York Stock Exchange. And even though Tribune is signaling it is now willing to accept offers for individual assets -- and many well-heeled buyers have been circling some of Tribune's better-known properties, such as the Los Angeles Times -- analysts are doubtful the combined value of a breakup of the company would be much higher.
Several analyst reports issued yesterday predict that Tribune's assets will fetch about the same amount broken into parts as it is valued at today: about $8 billion in market capitalization.
That puts Tribune's board in a difficult position. Not only is it hard to stop the momentum of an auction once it is under way, if the company decides to back away from selling all or parts of the company, Tribune's stock is likely to plunge below $28, some analysts predict.
With the newspaper industry in turmoil, suffering a worsening decline in advertising and circulation to the Internet, investors and industry executives are closely watching the progress of the Tribune auction. Tribune owns some of the best-known newspapers in the U.S., including the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and Newsday, as well as a big chain of TV stations. How Tribune fares in the auction is likely to influence whether other publishers, also under pressure from shareholders, take similar steps.
Investors have seen this picture before. Last year, money manager Bruce Sherman successfully agitated for newspaper empire Knight Ridder Inc. to put itself on the market. But the auction ended with only one bid coming in for the company, from fellow publisher McClatchy Co., while private-equity groups hovered without committing to a firm offer. Knight Ridder ended up selling for a mix of cash and stock valued at the time at $67.25 a share -- $1.75 above the average price paid by Mr. Sherman's Private Capital Management, a unit of Legg Mason Inc.
WALL STREET JOURNAL VIDEO
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WSJ's Dennis Berman discusses2 why, despite well-publicized circulation troubles, the newspaper business is still flush with money and remains an attraction for private equity.Even one of the few bulls on Tribune's stock, Barry Lucas, senior vice president at Gabelli & Co. Research, a unit of Gamco Investors Inc., admits that, "this is not the easiest environment to sell what's charitably called 'legacy media assets.'"
Mr. Lucas has a "buy" on Tribune stock but predicts that a price above the high $30s will be difficult to get this year given Tribune's deteriorating financial performance. Gabelli's asset-management arm held a 0.45% stake in Tribune as of June 30, according to FactSet Research Systems Inc.
One reason for the pessimism is the deterioration of Tribune's business. In the most recent quarter, Tribune revenue fell 3% to $1.35 billion, while operating profit fell 17% to $235 million.
The other issue is taxes, which could make a breakup of Tribune prohibitively expensive. Craig Huber, a newspaper analyst at Lehman Brothers, calculates that the company could theoretically pay as much as $3.7 billion in taxes if it sold all its divisions separately. Although he estimates that Tribune could fetch $12.2 billion in total for its individual units, it would only receive a net of $8.5 billion after paying taxes. Then, he says, after subtracting debt, Tribune would really only be worth $4 billion, or $17 a share.
"It is not tax efficient to sell Tribune's assets piece by piece," he wrote in a note published yesterday. Mr. Huber has an "underweight" rating on Tribune stock and a price target of $21.
But some investors feel that Tribune could still sell of some of its larger assets, such as the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Cubs baseball team, where potential buyers may be willing to pay more for their "vanity" value, some investors say.
Media giant News Corp. has expressed an interest in Newsday, which serves primarily Long Island, N.Y., according to people familiar with the situation. News Corp., which owns the nearby New York Post, among other properties, declined to comment. Individuals such as Frank Zarb are also said to be interested in Newsday. Other groups have looked at the Hartford Courant, of Connecticut.
Tribune has a low tax basis on its newspapers, however, which could be a major obstacle. To get around the tax problems, though, the company could do a so-called sponsored spin of an asset like the Los Angeles Times. That involves spinning off the paper as a separate entity with shareholders of its own.
One possible outcome, if management is unimpressed by the values it receives for either all of Tribune or its parts, would be a leveraged recapitalization, or "self-help deal," in which Tribune would borrow money and pay a one-time dividend to shareholders, and keep the firm public.