Tribune takeover (subplot: Big business affects you when you least expect it)

ESPP is the purchase plan.

Tribune has allowed total divestiture of company stock within the plan for years now.

The question is whether a new owner can take these holdings away.

 

I screwed that up unintentionally...
ESOP=Employee Stock Ownership Plan
ESPP=Employee Stock Purchase Plan
Tribune has offered both to employees in the past. They're very different, though.
The Ownership Plan allows the company the tax shield, the Purchase Plan amounts to a savings account.

 

I was under the impression that Zell wasn't getting into the newspaper business as much as he wanted all the real estate that the Tribune Company owns in all the different markets.
But I might be wrong.

 

Anybody hearing anything from the weekend meetings?

 

Re: Tribune takeover (subplot: Big business affects you when you least expect it

Zell wins.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/chi-070402tribune-zell,0,7143481.story?coll=orl-home-headlines

 

It's likely that the Cubs won't be the only Tribune property that Tribune will sell under Zell. Which newspapers go up for sale, when and to which companies is the next question in this story.

 

Re: Tribune takeover (subplot: Big business affects you when you least expect it

I think owning a newspaper would be fun...

 

Well, it's going to be quite a few months for this group.

I know people at the Times, the Tribune and both Florida (Sun-) Sentinels.

Best of luck for all of you. Hope in the end, this works out for the best for a long time.

 

Let's call it what this guy calls it: Mafia capitalism.


NEW YORK) Internet publisher, broadcaster and media critic Andy Martin will hold a telephone news conference Monday, April 2 to announce he will fight to block any takeover of the Tribune Company by asset stripper Sam Zell.

Based on a report published on the Tribune's web site that Zell is "favored" to take over the company, Martin told directors in a Sunday letter that handing Zell control "would be the death knell of American journalism."

Monday's news conference will expand on Martin's strategy to block any sale of the Tribune organization to asset strippers.

"We must stop the cycle of 'Mafia capitalism' that is destroying our economy: asset strippers buy from the public for less than fair value, and then resell to the public for more than fair value. When gangsters do that, it's called 'pump and dump.' When Blackstone Group and Zell use the same tactics its 'private equity.' Both ways, the public loses," Martin will charge on Monday.

"I am amused that after the United Airlines fiasco anyone would ever propose an ESOP as a means of 'saving' a company. I have friends that were wiped out by the ESOP at United. Zell just wants to strip out a billion for himself and dump the Tribune's entrails on the public at an inflated price. It is a tragedy for Chicago and a tragedy for journalism."

 

Boy, he really sugar coats it, doesn't he?

 

You probably don't know as many as you did four days ago.

 

Re: Tribune takeover (subplot: Big business affects you when you least expect it

Welcome to corporate Amurrica