Carlyle Group bidding on The Tribune Company (LAT and Chicago Trib)

[Dover]

Carlyle Group reportedly among possible bidders for Tribune Co.
Washington Business Journal - 2:58 PM EDT Monday

The Tribune Co., the embattled publisher of the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, is mulling an outright sale of the company, asking private-equity firms, including one based in Washington, to submit nonbinding indications of interest by the end of the month, according to a Monday report from The Wall Street Journal.

http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2006/10/23/daily12.html

http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2006/10/23/daily12.html

[Rose Siding]

1. How depressing

[kysrsoze]

2. Not happy about LA Times, but the Chicago Trib sucks anyway

It's very Repub-leaning and immensely pro-corporate. IMO, it's no big loss.

[kestrel91316]

3. OH SHIT. We already have one RW rag daily paper here

(The Daily News - just here in the San Fernando Valley......). We don't need another one...........it's not like the LAT is "liberal", anyway. They are mid-range to slightly RW as it is.

[Dover]

4. Taxes might stymie sale of Sun, other Tribune papers

By Andrea K. Walker and Tricia Bishop
Sun reporters

October 28, 2006

Four months ago, when Tribune Co. was trying to figure out how to unwind complex partnerships with an unhappy major stockholder, CEO Dennis J. FitzSimons left open many options - except generating more tax liability.

Taxes became a sore spot with FitzSimons after Tribune was hit with an unexpected $1 billion tax bill stemming from a transaction made by Times Mirror Co. before Tribune acquired it six years ago. And taxes now stand as a major obstacle facing local business and civic people, including the newly formed Baltimore Media Group, who have expressed interest in buying several Tribune newspapers.

If the assets of The Sun or other former Times Mirror properties were sold piecemeal, Tribune for capital-gains tax purposes would have to use the cost basis, or original value of the properties, that was set when Times Mirror owned them, analysts said. That wouldn't be true if the company was sold as a whole.

"The sales are complicated by the fact that the original purchase of Times Mirror left Tribune with a very low tax basis," said Barry L. Lucas, senior vice president of Gabelli & Co. Inc. in New York. "You have to pay the piper, so to speak, on the sales if you sell them individually."

cont'd

http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-bz.sun28oct28,0,2391456.story?coll=bal-business-headlines