Our long ordeal is nearly over! It appears that a change is coming to the leadership of the Tribune Company, and it could not come soon enough. Having endured the Zell years I can say that they were truly awful. A once great company and key newspapers in Chicago and Los Angeles were turned into rubble. The purchase of Tribune, mainly for the real estate – both buildings and Wrigley Field, bought at the height of the valuations for papers, went terribly wrong.
The final resolution has been going on for an extended period and mainly pits groupings of creditors against one another for the best settlement. The major creditors lead by Angelo, Gordon & Co. and Oaktree Capital Management as well as the ever present JP Morgan Chase are in the driving seat with $8.6 billion in claims. Many of the smaller creditors are not in agreement with the proposed settlement and have been successful in holding things up.
The key news that came out today is that Michael Eisner, formerly head of Disney is among the group being interviewed as the Chairman of Tribune. Zell is to be gone, long live the Zell. Hard to think of Mickey Mouse now leading my dear Los Angeles Times. Not since Ron Burkle and Jon Peters tried to buy it before Zell. Wow, I’ll have a comb out and blow dry with my box of Cheerios please!
Eisner could be the leader of a very well traveled group of former senior leaders I won’t bore you with – cause they bore the heck out of me. One interesting choice also mentioned is Michael Wolff, founder of Newser, the online quick news site and writer for Vanity Fair magazine. Michael also is close to Rupert Murdoch, having written a biography on him – wouldn’t that make a nice pairing for the future?
I’ll wait here in my bubble for further breaking news on who will be the winner, and who will get tagged to lead Tribune. This should be really interesting, especially to see what ideas they come up with to payoff the debt to all of the creditors who are still licking their lips in anticipation of a change at the top.
