Tribune Co. (TRBCQ.PK), owner of the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, Wednesday said it plans to pursue the separation of its broadcasting and publishing businesses into two distinct companies.
The separation will spin off Tribune's publishing assets to an independent company and the tax-free distribution of shares in that company to the stockholders of Tribune.
Thus, Tribune Publishing Company will be home to Tribune's publishing assets, including the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, Sun Sentinel (South Florida), Orlando Sentinel, Hartford Courant, The Morning Call and Daily Press.
Tribune, which emerged from bankruptcy at the end of last year, had announced last week an agreement to acquire Local TV Holdings and the 19 television stations it owns in 16 key markets for $2.725 billion in cash.
The newly formed Tribune Company will consist of the company's other principal businesses, including 42 local television stations in 33 markets as a result of the close of acquisition of Local TV, WGN Radio, superstation WGN America, Tribune Studios, Tribune Digital Ventures and Tribune Media Services.
It will also include the company's equity interests in Classified Ventures, CareerBuilder and The TV Food Network, and its portfolio of real estate assets.
The two companies will each have revenues of over $1 billion. Each company will have greater financial and operational focus and the ability to accommodate its capital structure to its specific needs. The firms will have a management team dedicated to seizing strategic growth opportunities.
Peter Liguori, Tribune's CEO, said the separation ''...will bring single-minded attention to the journalistic standards, advertising partnerships and digital prospects of our iconic newspapers, while also enabling us to take advantage of the operational and strategic opportunities created by the significant scale we are building in broadcasting."
Tribune's management team plans to develop detailed separation plans in the next nine to twelve months for the review of the board of directors. When the transaction is closed, each entity will have its own board of directors and senior management team.
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