From a New York Times story by Katie Robertson headlined “Billionaire Backs Out of Bidding for Tribune”:
The Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, who seemingly came out of nowhere last month to make a serious offer for Tribune Publishing, has decided to take himself out of the bidding, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.
Two of the people said the decision came about in recent days, after Mr. Wyss’s associates examined the Tribune’s finances….
The two people added that Mr. Wyss had come to believe it would be difficult for him to realize his ambition of transforming The Chicago Tribune — the company’s flagship paper and the one he was most interested in — into a national publication….
Mr. Wyss, who made his fortune as a medical device manufacturer, had joined the Maryland hotel executive Stewart Bainum Jr. in a bid that seemed as if it had a chance of preventing Tribune from becoming fully owned by its largest shareholder, the New York hedge fund Alden Global Capital….
Because Alden is known for slashing costs at the roughly 60 daily newspapers it controls through its MediaNews Group subsidiary, journalists at Tribune publications cheered the surprise entry of Mr. Wyss and Mr. Bainum into the bidding….
Mr. Bainum, who had taken a special interest in another Tribune paper, The Baltimore Sun, remains committed to pursuing ownership of Tribune Publishing. With Mr. Wyss no longer at his side, he is seeking new financing, the three people said. Mr. Bainum told the Tribune’s special committee of Mr. Wyss’s departure on Friday….
Mr. Wyss, who was born in Bern, Switzerland, and has a home in Wyoming, first visited the United States as an exchange student in 1958 and worked as a journalist as a young man. A decade ago, as the chief executive of the Swiss-based medical device maker Synthes, he oversaw its sale to Johnson & Johnson for roughly $20 billion.
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Katie Robertson is a media reporter. She previously worked as an editor and reporter at Bloomberg and News Corporation Australia.
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