Posted on 06/14/2006 9:07:12 AM PDT by abb
Harry Chandler of The Los Angeles Times and Colonel Robert R. McCormick of The Chicago Tribune were both towering figures of newspaper publishing in the first half of the 20th century.
And like many newspaper moguls, both created trusts to safeguard the papers they built and the causes they championed. Both wanted to extend their fortunes and influence down through the generations.
But decades after their deaths, the Chandler and McCormick legacies have come into stark contrast on the board of the Tribune Company, the media giant that today publishes 11 daily newspapers, including The Times and The Tribune, and owns 26 television stations.
On one side are more than 170 descendants of Mr. Chandler and his father-in-law, Harrison Gray Otis, a scattered group of distant cousins whose regular contact is an annual picnic that some family members attend each Memorial Day weekend near the California coast.
On the other is the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation, which Colonel McCormick, who had no children, left behind to finance a range of charities. The McCormick foundation is the Tribune Company's single largest shareholder, with 13.6 percent of its stock, while two trusts representing the Chandlers hold a 12.2 percent stake.
The trusts have taken starkly different views of the Tribune management's plan to revive the company's slumping shares, with the Chandler descendants opposing the roughly $2 billion stock buyback the company has announced.
At stake in the dispute is not just money, but possibly control over the company's direction. The Chandlers fear that management's buyback plan could limit Tribune's strategic options — and the value of their stake. And management, which also controls the McCormick trusts, is wary that the Chandlers want a financial structure that could benefit them while saddling the company with a big tax bill.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Tribune's Chandler Family Calls for Company Breakup (Update7). . . Sales Decline
Revenue at Tribune fell 2 percent last year to $5.6 billion, and analysts expect sales to be little changed this year. Net income, after falling 4 percent last year to $557 million, is set to rise 4 percent in 2006, according to analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.
The broadcast division reported a 6.1 percent decline in sales in 2005, compared with a 0.8 percent drop at the print unit.
FitzSimons said on May 30 he planned to sell assets and trim costs to bolster profit. He also announced the buyback plan.
The $8 billion purchase of Times Mirror in 2000 was the biggest in Tribune's history, which dates back to the 1847 creation of the Chicago Daily Tribune newspaper. Tribune subsequently expanded into broadcasting in 1924 with the start of radio station WGN and bought the Cubs from chewing-gum heir William Wrigley in 1981.
Newspapers and broadcasting became the focus of Tribune's expansion in the 1990s, with the company promoting the Cubs on its Chicago television and radio stations.
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