Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Tronc'ed again: Union-Tribune faces yet more jobless fears

If Gannett deal dies, could bio-tech billionaire still grab piece of L.A. Times?

A graph in a video released by tronc earlier this year did not include the San Diego Union-Tribune.
A graph in a video released by tronc earlier this year did not include the San Diego Union-Tribune.

It may be curtains for media giant Gannett's multibillion-dollar deal for tronc, the Chicago-based newspaper chain that owns San Diego's Union-Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, leaving employees of the troubled print-based business in more fear for their livelihoods than ever before.

The latest take on the fate of the long-delayed move, rumored for months, comes from Bloomberg, citing unidentified insiders who say that Jefferies LLC and SunTrust Banks Inc., the institutions expected to finance the takeover, no longer want to have anything to do with it.

"It appears that the banks are the only rational players in this dance,” Paul Sweeney, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, was quoted as saying.

Bob Dickey

A few hours before, asked during Gannett's October 27 third-quarter earnings conference call about how the company's "Mergers and Acquisitions front" was going, CEO Bob Dickey replied, "it all comes down to making sure that these are accretive for our shareholders and add value and that the financing terms make sense for the company or we’re not just going to add properties for the sake of adding properties."

Sponsored
Sponsored

The call was terminated before follow-up questions could be posed. Earlier in the event, Dickey recounted the company's latest bad earnings report.

"As we headed into the quarter we had been projecting stable print advertising trends offset by improving digital advertising trends which combined with the acquisitions would have driven revenue growth of between 7 to 9 percent," noted the CEO.

"Instead we saw pullback in spending in print products in both local and national markets similar to others in the industry," he said. "We saw weakness in domestic preprint down 19 percent and national print advertising down 30 percent, driven by lower spending from large retailers."

Asked to apply a sports analogy to the future of Gannett's cost-cutting, Dickey said, "If you want to use baseball and it's a nine-inning game, we probably just finished the third inning."

Following the call, the price of Gannett shares dropped 17 percent, and tronc stock plummeted as much as 30 percent.

Ken Doctor

Meanwhile, Ken Doctor, the online columnist who started much of the talk about a tronc takeover by Gannett, advanced another possible scenario.

Michael Ferro

Tronc had been set to hold a Wednesday board confab to go over the prospective buyout, said Doctor, writing before the Gannett earnings announcement, but the meeting was abruptly canceled.

"The plan on the table sets up a complicated structure to preserve the independence of the L.A. Times — and to keep one of its major investors around."

Patrick Soon-Shiong

Per Doctor, Los Angeles bio-medical billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong — who in May sank $75.5 million into tronc and was subsequently named to the board by company chairman Mike Ferro — wants to carve out a part-ownership role for himself at the L.A. Times as part of any Gannett deal.

"First: Gannett gains ownership of the Times along with the other tronc properties, but then sells a minority interest in either Gannett overall or in a Times subsidiary to Soon-Shiong," per Doctor.

"Second: Gannett would agree to set up an 'independent' board in L.A. to review the Times’ journalism and insure the robustness of its future report. Housing the fourth-largest newsroom in the nation, the Times would gain a kind of semi-independent status in the deal not granted to any other newspaper in the Gannett ecosystem."

Eli Broad

All perhaps well and good for the Times, but the question of what would ultimately happen to the smaller San Diego Union-Tribune, now an increasingly satellite-style operation that relies on the Times's Los Angeles printing plant to produce its papers, remains unanswered.

Over the years, a succession of L.A-based would-be owners of the Times have been said to have coveted its control, including billionaire Democrat Eli Broad, a charter schools champion who over the years has dabbled in both Los Angeles and San Diego politics but never managed to close a deal for either paper.

Though tronc has talked up using computer technology developed by Soon-Shiong to boost the chain's online revenue, a widely mocked video posted earlier this year regarding the company's video plans omitted any mention of San Diego.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Mid-range fleet scoring bluefin limits off Ensenada

Rockfish to open at all depths April 1st (no foolin’)
A graph in a video released by tronc earlier this year did not include the San Diego Union-Tribune.
A graph in a video released by tronc earlier this year did not include the San Diego Union-Tribune.

It may be curtains for media giant Gannett's multibillion-dollar deal for tronc, the Chicago-based newspaper chain that owns San Diego's Union-Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, leaving employees of the troubled print-based business in more fear for their livelihoods than ever before.

The latest take on the fate of the long-delayed move, rumored for months, comes from Bloomberg, citing unidentified insiders who say that Jefferies LLC and SunTrust Banks Inc., the institutions expected to finance the takeover, no longer want to have anything to do with it.

"It appears that the banks are the only rational players in this dance,” Paul Sweeney, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, was quoted as saying.

Bob Dickey

A few hours before, asked during Gannett's October 27 third-quarter earnings conference call about how the company's "Mergers and Acquisitions front" was going, CEO Bob Dickey replied, "it all comes down to making sure that these are accretive for our shareholders and add value and that the financing terms make sense for the company or we’re not just going to add properties for the sake of adding properties."

Sponsored
Sponsored

The call was terminated before follow-up questions could be posed. Earlier in the event, Dickey recounted the company's latest bad earnings report.

"As we headed into the quarter we had been projecting stable print advertising trends offset by improving digital advertising trends which combined with the acquisitions would have driven revenue growth of between 7 to 9 percent," noted the CEO.

"Instead we saw pullback in spending in print products in both local and national markets similar to others in the industry," he said. "We saw weakness in domestic preprint down 19 percent and national print advertising down 30 percent, driven by lower spending from large retailers."

Asked to apply a sports analogy to the future of Gannett's cost-cutting, Dickey said, "If you want to use baseball and it's a nine-inning game, we probably just finished the third inning."

Following the call, the price of Gannett shares dropped 17 percent, and tronc stock plummeted as much as 30 percent.

Ken Doctor

Meanwhile, Ken Doctor, the online columnist who started much of the talk about a tronc takeover by Gannett, advanced another possible scenario.

Michael Ferro

Tronc had been set to hold a Wednesday board confab to go over the prospective buyout, said Doctor, writing before the Gannett earnings announcement, but the meeting was abruptly canceled.

"The plan on the table sets up a complicated structure to preserve the independence of the L.A. Times — and to keep one of its major investors around."

Patrick Soon-Shiong

Per Doctor, Los Angeles bio-medical billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong — who in May sank $75.5 million into tronc and was subsequently named to the board by company chairman Mike Ferro — wants to carve out a part-ownership role for himself at the L.A. Times as part of any Gannett deal.

"First: Gannett gains ownership of the Times along with the other tronc properties, but then sells a minority interest in either Gannett overall or in a Times subsidiary to Soon-Shiong," per Doctor.

"Second: Gannett would agree to set up an 'independent' board in L.A. to review the Times’ journalism and insure the robustness of its future report. Housing the fourth-largest newsroom in the nation, the Times would gain a kind of semi-independent status in the deal not granted to any other newspaper in the Gannett ecosystem."

Eli Broad

All perhaps well and good for the Times, but the question of what would ultimately happen to the smaller San Diego Union-Tribune, now an increasingly satellite-style operation that relies on the Times's Los Angeles printing plant to produce its papers, remains unanswered.

Over the years, a succession of L.A-based would-be owners of the Times have been said to have coveted its control, including billionaire Democrat Eli Broad, a charter schools champion who over the years has dabbled in both Los Angeles and San Diego politics but never managed to close a deal for either paper.

Though tronc has talked up using computer technology developed by Soon-Shiong to boost the chain's online revenue, a widely mocked video posted earlier this year regarding the company's video plans omitted any mention of San Diego.

Comments
Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Dating Sites For Little People: Best Platforms & Tips

Next Article

Pet pig perches in pocket

Escondido doula gets a taste of celebrity
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.