Hope springs eternal.
A still-confidential group of local investors intent on retrieving The Sun newspaper from its prospective new Chicago owner can both afford a reported $517 million valuation of the 170-year-old daily and has a plan to make it more profitable, a spokesperson for the Baltimore Media Group said.
“I?m not going to confirm that number,” Theodore Venetoulis said about the putative price, adding, however, that the group absolutely would not go after “[the paper] if we did not think we had the capacity.”
Baltimore-based Abell Foundation President Robert Embry is the only other known member of the group.
Venetoulis said he could not yet appraise the paper?s worth ? which cited declining advertising revenues in a recent layoffs-in-the-offing announcement ? because owner Tribune Co.?s books were unavailable while it sought a buyer to take the publicly traded company private.
Tribune Co., which owns The Sun, 10 other dailies, 23 television stations and Internet properties, announced sale of its holdings to Chicago real estate mogul Sam Zell and a Zell-engineered, tax-exempt Employee Stock Ownership Plan. Estimated at $34 per share, the pending $8.2 billion deal would reduce profit-making pressures and keep Tribune Co.?s media properties intact.
The complex transaction, however, imposes a $13 billion debt and a relatively lenient $25 million breakup fee on Tribune Co., and this has fueled speculation that offers not are still in play. Noting this, Venetoulis conceded his group remains in touch with persisting suitors of Tribune Co., and has received encouragement from them.
Noting the Tribune Co.?s pending debt load, Greater Baltimore Committee President Don Fry said The Sun?s availability was still “a viable option,” especially once the dust settles from the overall deal.
Lamenting the paper?s announced layoff plans, Venetoulis nevertheless gave no assurances that such measures were off the table if the hometown group ? which he said is more civic-minded than short-term profit-oriented ? gained control of The Sun.
“Well, our position is that they have a lot of talent over there, and you can?t go messing with the ability for a newspaper to produce content,” Venetoulis said. “We certainly would not be looking at diminishing the paper?s ability to do that. Our hope is by being local … we?ll be able to increase The Sun?s profitability.”
