FLA Investor Commits $100M Toward Bid for Tribune Publishing

A Florida investor has expressed interest in joining an 11th-hour effort by a Maryland hotel magnate to acquire Tribune Publishing Co. and wrest the company away from hedge fund Alden Global Capital, LLC, reports The Wall Street Journal. 

Mason Slaine, a technology investor and minority shareholder in Tribune, told The Wall Street Journal he is willing to put up $100 million toward a bid being put together by Stewart Bainum, chairman of Choice Hotels International Inc.

Slaine, who owns a 3.4% stake in Tribune, said he would make the personal investment in order to acquire the publisher’s two Florida newspapers, the Orlando Sentinel and the Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale.

“I am a Florida resident and I believe heartily in strong investigative journalism as a necessary part of creating a safe and honest society,” he wrote in an email to a group of reporters at the Orlando newspaper, according to a copy reviewed by the Journal. The group, which calls itself the Committee to Save Our Sentinel, had contacted him about stopping Alden’s bid.

Over the weekend, Bainum’s effort received a major boost when Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss said he was committing $100 million to the potential bid with the intention of ultimately taking control of the Chicago Tribune.

New York-based Alden, which owns about 32% of Tribune, has offered $17.25 per share for the rest of the company, valuing it at about $635 million. Tribune’s board last week recommended to shareholders that they accept the bid.

Alden has been a lighting rod for criticism in the newspaper industry for its cost-cutting. That has sparked protests by employees outside its New York headquarters and pleas by reporters in more than one city for someone else to acquire their papers.