Sinclair buys Tribune Media for $3.9 billion

Sinclair to buy WGN owner Tribune Media for $3.9 billion plus debt

 

Is it essentially the same company as it was 10 years ago? When Sam Zell bought it then, it was for $8.2 billion plus debt.

 

Did you read the article?

 

2007
-------
Tribune = broadcast and newspapers


2017
------
Tribune Media = broadcast

tronc = newspapers

 

Tronc has a market cap of 500 million and long-term debt of 500 million.

 

How the hell does a company come out of bankruptcy, then put itself another half-billion in debt so quickly?

I know Tribune Media did tronc no favors when they split, but geez . . .

 

Sinclair will be the largest content provider of local TV news.

And, Sinclair loves Trump.

 

No favors is understating it, huh?

In 2014, Tribune spun off its publishing division, including the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and other major daily newspapers, retaining its broadcast and real estate assets. The spinoff saddled Tribune Publishing, now Tronc, with $275 million in debt in order to pay a cash dividend to the parent company. Tribune Media began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in December 2014.

 

To my earlier question, that again sounds like a good indication of just how overvalued newspapers were in the mid-2000s.

 

First, there was that $275 million in debt from that spinoff from Tribune Media. Shortly thereafter, the company formerly known as Tribune Publishing paid $85 million for the San Diego Union. ASSuming most or all of the purchase price was financed, it would have driven the debt to $350 million or more. Also, Trib Publishing bought the dailies on the fringes of the Chicago area (Waukegan, Elgin, Aurora, Naperville, Joliet and Merrillville, Ind.), plus the Southtown paper and a bunch of weeklies from the Sun-Times' parent company. Jack Griffin went on a bit of a spending spree when he was CEO (which might be one of the reasons he went away).

 

Before the Zell sale, Tribune turned down --- turned down! --- a $2 billion offer for just the L.A. Times.

After the Tribune Publishing spinoff, all Tribune newspapers together were valued at $650 million.

 

I did not have time to go through the footnotes but as of 12/31/16 Tronc reported 350 million of long term debt and 161 of other long-term liabilities. My guess is that most of the latter are pension fund liabilities.