Can Tribune Survive Without Gannett?

打印媒体正在染色 - 否则克制克制品 - 但科技企业家和私募股权投资者Michael Ferro认为他可以拯救它。2月，基于芝加哥的Merrick Ventures的创始人Ferro成为芝加哥论坛发布公司最大的股东，发布了芝加哥论坛报， 这芝加哥阳光时间， 这洛杉矶时报and a portfolio of smaller papers. Tribune, like all traditional news publishing companies, is facing tough times. With shrinking advertising and circulation revenues, its stock price dropped 60 percent in the year prior to Ferro’s $44.4 million cash infusion. But when Tysons Corner, Virginia–based rival Gannett Co. offered to buy Tribune in April for $12.25 a share, a 63 percent premium over its price at the time — plus the assumption of another $390 million in debt —Tribune’s board, including nonexecutive chairman Ferro, decided to pitch shareholders a sweeping digital overhaul instead. The plan is reminiscent of what many old-media companies have tried to do in recent years, but some shareholders and analysts aren’t sure Ferro and his team are up to the task.

“Ferro believes he’s inventing something for the newspaper industry,” says Ken Doctor, a consumer media expert who spent more than 20 years in both editorial and executive positions at newspaper publisher Knight Ridder before its 2006 sale to McClatchy Co. “He truly believes that. Nobody else believes it.”

Although Tribune’s top brass have publicly supported Ferro’s new plan for the company, Doctor is far from the only observer to question recent actions. It’s common for major shareholders to reject takeover bids, especially when they are unsolicited or hostile, often to push for a higher price. But with Gannett’s offer, analysts and at least one major shareholder — Los Angeles–based alternative asset firmOaktree Capital Management- 抓住他们的头脑，想知道更多的论坛。在周五，Oaktree在以前的讨论过来的论坛报，并发出了与证券交易委员会的正式声明，敦促该公司听到Gannett Out。

“The institutional investors are seeing this offer for what it is: their best chance to get double digits for that share price that they are probably ever going to see,” says Doctor.

铁和最近被任命为首席执行官贾斯汀迪尔伯恩laid out Tribune’s new strategic plan, which involves selling content from newspapers and syndicated brands through new digital avenues and creating new international bureaus of the洛杉矶时报for more global entertainment coverage. If this sounds familiar, it’s because similar things have been tried before, by everyone from Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos (with the华盛顿邮报）向纽约的对冲基金公司Alden Global Capital（有数字第一媒体）。

So far, monetizing old media has proved difficult even for the savviest entrepreneurs, while new media companies such as BuzzFeed and Fusion Media Network are still grappling with turning views and clicks into dollars. Ferro’s most recent deal before buying into Tribune was the $1 billion sale of health care IT company Merge Healthcare, of which his Merrick Ventures owned 24 percent, to IBM last summer, and he aims to assemble a team at Tribune with equally impressive venture and technology chops. But some experts see hubris in attempting to apply those skills to an industry in secular decline.

The Tribune的戏剧周一在该公司采用了一个所谓的毒药计划时达成了一个Crescendo，这将使股东在销售情况下以显着的折扣购买股票，稀释潜在买家的股份。这种情况是一个问题的问题，即每个印刷新闻出口都是从互联网的出现以来的努力努力，并且可以说出版商如何产生精心制作，吸引人的内容，也带来足够的收入来支付生产的人民内容并保持灯光？虽然专注于技术的违约者似乎赢得了点击争夺战，但货币化内容的问题会使出版商在晚上保持所有类型的出版商。如果有一些东西要审判，老卫兵已经尝试过它，至少在他们可以承受的程度。当创新没有工作时 - 因为它通常没有 - 下一个逻辑步骤一直是破产或并购。

“News is so competitive on the Internet, and barriers to entry to the market are so low, that newspaper groups are finding it far harder to make money than they had anticipated at the start of their digital transformations,” says Lorna Tilbian, executive director and head of the media sector at London-based institutional stockbroker Numis Securities. “Publishers are being forced to find ways to make print profitable, which invariably means cutting costs and, increasingly, consolidation.”

Tilbian指向Trinity Mirror的2015年在U.K中购买当地世界。作为这样的例子。Gannett本身一直在购买狂欢，最近收购基于密尔沃基的当地纸出版商期刊媒体集团，于4.4 000万美元。

在这个环境中，很难在行业中看到哪些菲罗和他的团队已经想象着这么多人没有。即使是Matthew Brooks，也是一家服务部门分析师Macquarie Capital（美国），敦促论坛通过销售其打印产品和为每个用户购买平板电脑而成为“新闻Netflix”，而不是在新的数字方向上出售。

“与上一支球队相比，我认为他们所做的实际上是一个非常好的策略 - 他们拥有软件，数据分析和人工智能的专业知识，”布鲁克斯说。“但我们不知道他们有多快地成长那个业务。打印广告仍将每年下降8至10％，这不会停止。他们能否成长剩下的业务并使市场价值成为困境？“

Though Brooks’s official position on the ongoing deal is neutral, he says the risk of the answer to that question being no is too high to ignore Gannett. If the deal is lost, Tribune may spread more poison than it bargained for; Brooks predicts a share price of $9 or less. (Tribune shares closed at $11.50 on May 9.)

真正的测试可能会在Tribune的6月2日年度会议上出现。有两台董事会席位为抓斗，Gannett鼓励股东扣留他们的董事会投票，以迫使公司审议其交易。如果Ferro成功地在这些席位中挑选他的选择，他可能有足够的支持来防止销售，但医生注意到一个主要的潜在缺陷：一个或多个股东诉讼的前景，即使是最友好的交易和可能导致的股东诉讼已经挣扎着的额外压力。

“克尼特对此看起来非常认真，我认为Oaktree和其他人会认真对待它，”医生说。“最终，我认为[Ferro]被出于恐惧，如果没有别的话。”