A third-party bidder made an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to buy the Hartford Courant last year, according to documents filed by Tribune Publishing Co., the Courant’s corporate parent, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The bidder — who is not identified by name in the SEC documents — submitted a non-binding proposal to Tribune Publishing in July 2020 concerning a “potential acquisition” of the company’s “business, assets, and properties related to the Hartford Courant,” the filing states.
Tribune Publishing said it responded to the would-be buyer’s interest, but the two parties “were unable to agree on a confidentiality agreement to engage in discussions.”
It is not clear if the bidder ever put forward a potential purchase price.
The disclosure of the scuttled talks was folded into an over 200-page filing encouraging Tribune investors to endorse a buyout that would bring the company under the control of hedge fund Alden Global Capital. Alden, which already owns a 32% percent stake in Tribune Publishing, has offered a deal valued at $630 million for the media group.
Tribune Publishing is also entertaining an acquisition bid from Stewart Bainum Jr., a Maryland-based hotel executive who earlier this year said he wants to buy The Baltimore Sun.
Bainum originally planned to purchase the Baltimore newspaper through a non-profit entity he heads, the Sunlight for All Institute, once Alden took over Tribune. But now the businessman has submitted a competing offer of $650 million for all of the Tribune publications.
According to the SEC documents, Bainum is prepared to commit $100 million to the effort and hopes to raise the remaining sum from other sources.
Letters sent by Bainum’s representatives “alluded to a future for the company and its newspapers potentially under a not-for-profit model,” the filing states.
In addition to the Hartford Courant and The Baltimore Sun, Tribune Publishing also owns the Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News, Florida’s Sun Sentinel and Orlando Sentinel, Virginia’s Daily Press and Virginian-Pilot, and The Morning Call of eastern Pennsylvania.
