The Tribune company emerged from bankruptcy on December 31, 2012 after 4 years of trying to shed the billions of dollars it owed creditors. Its new owners are JP Morgan, Oaktree Capital and Angelo, Gordon & Co who will decide what happens next to the 167 year old media conglomerate. Those are the same three companies who took over Freedom Communications after it emerged from bankruptcy last year.
In South Florida, Tribune owns The Sun Sentinel which is now the biggest newspaper in the area and WSFL-TV, the local CW affiliate. Nationally it owns the ‘LA Times’, ‘Chicago Tribune’, WGN Superstation and other properties. No one really knows how this would turn out but for the last several weeks Reuters and other news outlets have reported rumors that the new Tribune will be focusing on its TV properties and will sell all or most of its newspapers whose value has gone down considerably in the last several years. Tribune’s new board of directors is stacked with former TV executives and Peter Liguori, the man said to be its new CEO, is widely credited for successfully relaunching cable channel FX.
Generally, creditors like JP Morgan, Oaktree and Angelo, Gordon & Co. specialise in extracting the most value out of whatever assets they get their hands on post-bankruptcy so ‘For Sale’ signs may be showing up across Tribune’s properties soon.
