Swiss Billionaire Surprise New Player For Tribune Publishing

An octogenarian Swiss billionaire who makes his home in Wyoming and has donated hundreds of millions to environmental causes is a surprise new player in the bidding for Tribune Publishing, the major newspaper chain that until recently seemed destined to end up in the hands of a New York hedge fund.

Hansjörg Wyss

The NY Times reports Hansjörg Wyss (pronounced Hans-yorg Vees), the former chief executive of the medical device manufacturer Synthes, said in an interview on Friday that he had agreed to join with the Maryland hotelier Stewart W. Bainum Jr. in a bid for Tribune Publishing, an offer that could upend Alden Global Capital’s plan to take full ownership of the company.

85-Year-old Wyss said he was motivated to join the Tribune bid by his belief in the need for a robust press. “I have an opportunity to do 500 times more than what I’m doing now,” he said.

Alden, which already owns roughly 32 percent of Tribune Publishing shares, is known for drastically cutting costs at the newspapers it controls through its MediaNews Group subsidiary. Last month, the hedge fund reached an agreement with Tribune, whose papers include The Daily News, The Baltimore Sun and The Chicago Tribune, to buy the rest of the company’s shares at $17.25 apiece.

Stewart W Bainum Jr.

Under that plan, Bainum, a lifelong Marylander, agreed to establish a nonprofit group that would buy The Sun and two other Tribune-owned Maryland newspapers from Alden for $65 million. Soon after that agreement was reached, however, negotiations between Bainum and Alden stalled. That prompted Bainum, the chairman of Choice Hotels International, one of the world’s largest hotel chains, to make a bid on March 16 for all of Tribune, beating Alden’s number with an offer of $18.50 a share.

That bid valued the company at about $650 million. The Alden agreement valued Tribune at roughly $630 million.

Tribune was not swayed by Mr. Bainum’s offer. A securities filing on Tuesday revealed that the company’s board recommended that shareholders approve the Alden bid. At the same time, the Tribune board gave Bainum the go-ahead to pursue financing for his higher bid.

He has done just that by teaming with Mr. Wyss, who said in the interview that he planned to own the company’s flagship paper while he and Bainum seek benefactors for Tribune’s seven other metro dailies, which include The Orlando Sentinel and The Hartford Courant.