Free Republic

Rupert Murdoch, co-chairman of Wall Street Journal publisher News Corp, on Friday said he had "strong word" that the Tribune Publishing Co's newspaper group will be bought by a Wall Street firm, while the Los Angeles Times will be split off and purchased by local investors including philanthropist Eli Broad.Murdoch, who is also co-chairman of 21st Century Fox, the entertainment and broadcast group, made his comments on Twitter.In September Tribune's board said the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union-Tribune were "a cornerstone of our company's portfolio and a key component to our success in the future."Murdoch did not say...

Some are deriding Nicolas Berggruen and other wealthy reform advocates for jumping into the initiative fray with plans for fixing California's tax system, schools and other services. This editorial board has long been leery of initiatives, and we certainly understand why many are angry about wealth disparities that have grown wider since the recession. Yet Californians shouldn't reflexively reject a reform measure because its backers are wealthy. Instead, we should welcome the energy behind any and all efforts to fix California's governance and finances, and recognize that any change in the status quo will require not only strong grass-roots support,...

Billionaires, Insiders Plan To Place $10-Billion Tax Hike On 2012 California Ballot Acting as the Think Long Committee, they want to change the tax system to increase money for public schools and universities and for local governments. By Anthony York, Los Angeles Times November 20, 2011 Reporting from Sacramento— Joining the battle over California taxes, a group of billionaires and political insiders say they will place a $10-billion tax increase on the November 2012 ballot. The Think Long Committee, which includes Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, former governors Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Los Angeles philanthropist Eli Broad, says its...

Tribune Co., owner of the Chicago Cubs, the LA Times and Newsday, appears to have thrown a takeover party where no one showed up......private-equity firms that have been meeting with Tribune's management and looking over its financial records for the past several months do not plan to submit final offers, sources close to the process said........The only attendee at the party seems to be the Chandler family, which originally pressured Tribune's board to conduct a public sale process last year. It's still unknown whether billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad and financier Ron Burkle plan to bid. Sources said that the two...

Two of the Southland's wealthiest residents made a bid for one of the nation's largest media companies Wednesday in an attempt to restore local ownership of the Los Angeles Times. Billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad and Ron Burkle, who made his fortune in the supermarket industry, submitted an offer for Chicago-based Tribune Co. In addition to The Times, Tribune owns KTLA Channel 5, three dozen other newspapers and television stations and baseball's Chicago Cubs. The pair would not disclose details of their offer, which was made through companies they control. The bid was "competitive" with at least four offers made for...

My new column, Deal Or No Deal, compares what's happening with Eli Broad, Ron Burkle and David Geffen and the Los Angeles Times/Tribune Co. to NBC's hit game show and asks the question: Broad, Burkle, Geffen... when it comes to the Times, whose briefcase is bigger? (Thursday's New York Times also looks at Geffen's interest in buying the paper. But the story has nothing new in it.) In my view, more and more, the newspaper on Spring Street is beginning to resemble Deal or No Deal. Forget all those ink-stained news males: bring on the female eye candy. Or better...

Billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad and prominent investor Ron Burkle submitted a bid today to buy Tribune Co. of Chicago, which owns the Los Angeles Times, KTLA Channel 5 and the Chicago Cubs. Details about the offer and the price that the duo would be willing to pay remained unclear, but the Los Angeles-based businessmen have said for months that they wanted a local group to take control of The Times ADVERTISEMENT"Affiliates of the Broad Investment Company and [Burkle's] Yucaipa Companies have submitted a competitive bid for acquisition of the entire Tribune company," a source familiar with the offer said. Broad...

The Los Angeles Opera will spend a $6m (£3.2m) gift from two philanthropists on staging its first production of Richard Wagner's epic Ring cycle. The four-opera production, which takes days to perform, took 28 years for the German composer to write. Tenor Placido Domingo, who is general director of the opera company, thanked Eli and Edythe Broad - who made money from house building - for the donation. "I hope to sing the role of Siegmund, if I am still singing then," he said. "The far-reaching generosity of their gift will help make this vision a reality," the 65-year-old added....

Three Billionaires Bidding for LA Times Three billionaires, including Hollywood mogul David Geffen, have expressed interest in buying the Los Angeles Times, but have been rebuffed for the time being by its owner, Tribune Co., the paper reported. Geffen, property developer Eli Broad and supermarket investor Ron Burkle each wrote to the board of directors of the Chicago-based firm, which is under pressure from shareholders to boost its flagging share price, the paper said in its Saturday edition. The report, citing unidentified sources, said Tribune's directors considered the three letters at a July 19 board meeting. Tribune Chairman and Chief...

SACRAMENTO - Every property owner in California, no matter how big or small or valuable the parcel, faces paying a flat $50 tax to fund schools under a measure voters will be asked to approve in November. Although it's still early in the election season, the move already is generating criticism from taxpayer groups and property owners who say it's a regressive tax and adds to the burden on average citizens who are already overtaxed. Proponents of Proposition 88 - authored by EdVoice, a coalition that includes backing from such wealthy philanthropists as Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, Silicon Valley investor...

Dissident group says will continue efforts for sale or breakup of company... Tribune Co. shares gained ground Tuesday, rising as the media company that's been working to revamp operations amid shareholder unrest announced the results of a Dutch tender auction. Analysts said any gains could prove short lived, however. Chicago-based Tribune Co said that about 45 million, or 15%, of its common shares were tendered and that it expects to buy the shares at a price of $32.50 each. The number of shares tendered came in 8 million short of the maximum that the company had initially authorized in the...

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- Tribune Co.'s second-largest shareholder has raised the stakes in its dispute over the company's strategic direction, calling for "decisive action" by the newspaper publisher and broadcaster, including a possible sale. The Chandler Trusts, which own more than 12% of Tribune's < outstanding shares, had objected last week to Tribune's plan to buy back up to 25% of its stock, which was part of an attempt to lift a stock price that has lost nearly half its value in the last two years. Most of those shares are to be purchased in Dutch-auction tender offer. In a regulatory...

Business and Labor Leaders Call on President to Halt Recall Effort Five prominent business and labor leaders called on President Bush to stop the Republican-led effort to recall Democratic Governor Gray Davis. The bipartisan group made the plea in an opinion piece published in Sunday's Los Angeles Times. The signers included Los Angeles developer and investor Eli Broad, Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr, investment firm chairman Warren Hellman, California Federation of Labor head Art Pulaski and Arthur Rock, one of the founders of Intel. The Times piece contended that the recall effort threatens to plunge a state already...

LOS ANGELES – Philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad donated $25 million to build a stem cell research center at the University of Southern California, school officials said Thursday. Groundbreaking for the center, which will be named the Broad Institute for Integrative Biology and Stem Cell Research, will begin in the fall. The 215,000-square-foot facility is expected to be the largest stem cell research center in the state when it opens in 2008, the university said. The Broad Institute will bring together various scientific disciplines to study stem cells, which some believe hold promise for treating an array of diseases like...

Groups consider preschool measure REINER TO PROMOTE HIS INITIATIVE IN S.J. Rob Reiner returns to San Jose on Thursday to pitch Proposition 82, his Preschool for All Act, as two key Silicon Valley business groups wrangle over whether to endorse the plan to provide a free voluntary year of preschool to all 4-year-olds in the state. The tech-heavy Silicon Valley Leadership Group, which met with Reiner in mid-December, and the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce have yet to weigh in on the complex initiative, which goes before voters statewide June 6. In recent weeks, a variety of opponents...

Preschool for All Committee Total (last twelve months):$2,169,584 Cash on Hand (as of June 30):$195,431 Expenditures (Note: this includes only late contributions, generally large electronically filed contributions.This is not necessarily the total amount of cash-on-hand for the committee.) << Donor >> << Amount >> << Received Date >> << Report Date >> Carl And Estelle Reiner (Beverly Hills, CA) $500,000 12/07/2005 12/16/2005 Jamel Perkins (San Francisco, CA) $5,000 11/22/2005 12/02/2005 Catholic Healthcare West (Phoenix, AZ) $25,000 11/11/2005 11/18/2005 Brian S. Snyder (New York, NY) $30,000 11/10/2005 11/18/2005 Hispanic Express, Inc. (Los Angeles, CA) $20,000 11/09/2005 11/18/2005 Elon R. Musk (Los...

Occidental College President Theodore R. Mitchell, a politically connected education expert credited with reinvigorating his Los Angeles campus over the past six years, said Tuesday that he would step down Sept. 1. Mitchell, 49, is leaving the private liberal arts college to become chief executive of NewSchools Venture Fund, a nonprofit group based in San Francisco. NewSchools, founded in 1998 by a group including Silicon Valley venture capitalists John Doerr and Brook Byers, has invested $40 million in efforts to improve public education in urban areas. Mitchell said he decided to take the job at NewSchools because "there is a...

"He's the perfect choice at this critical time for education," Schwarzenegger said of Bersin, who served two years on the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Bersin, 58, offered a glimpse of his hard-hitting approach at the news conference. Standing next to the governor and speaking in a relaxed but firm tone, Bersin did not shy away from taking on teachers unions. "It's very important that we find common ground for what our kids need, not what's good for the union," he said. "This has to be premised on what's good for children." Barbara Kerr, president of the California Teachers Assn.,...

WASHINGTON — Eli Broad, a Los Angeles philanthropist and one of the nation’s wealthiest individuals, said Tuesday he is putting his money on retired Gen. Wesley Clark of Little Rock to take the White House away from George W. Bush. Broad, whose wealth is estimated at around $4 billion by Forbes magazine, said campaign finance reports to be disclosed today will show that he and his wife, Edythe, have given the maximum — $2,000 each — to Clark for his battle for the Democratic presidential nomination. Clark’s first Federal Election Commission report, due to be disclosed today, is expected...