BUSINESS
March 16, 2007 | James Rainey, Times Staff Writer
Former Los Angeles Times Publisher Jeffrey M. Johnson has taken an executive position with Yucaipa Cos., the private investment firm that last year joined in a bid to buy the newspaper's parent, Tribune Co. of Chicago.
BUSINESS
April 26, 2000 | MICHAEL A. HILTZIK, TIMES STAFF WRITER
The little-known Pfaffinger Foundation was created in 1936 to provide financial assistance to current and former employees of Times Mirror Co. So now it faces something of a crisis: What happens when there are no more Times Mirror employees? "We are trying to figure that out," said the foundation's chairman, Stephen C. Meier. "We don't know yet." Times Mirror is scheduled to be merged into Chicago-based Tribune Co.
OPINION
April 9, 2009 | ROSA BROOKS
This will be my last column for the L.A. Times. After four years, I'll soon be starting a stint at the Pentagon as an advisor to the undersecretary of Defense for policy. Some might say I have a "new job," but because I'll be escaping a dying industry -- and your tax dollars will shortly be paying my salary -- I prefer to think of it as my personal government bailout.
BUSINESS
January 17, 2008 | Molly Selvin, Times Staff Writer
How much should a company's culture reflect its chief executive, especially one who prides himself on being a blunt and innovative -- some might say abrasive -- businessman? If you're new Tribune Co. CEO Sam Zell, the answer seems to be: A lot. At least that was the feeling workers got Wednesday with the distribution of a new employee handbook, a document that's nothing like the mind-numbing, lawyered gobbledygook in most corporate manuals. Consider the opening: "Rule #1: Use your best judgment."
BUSINESS
August 21, 2006 | Thomas S. Mulligan and Martin Zimmerman, Times Staff Writers
When Nelson Peltz puts his money at risk in a company, he expects to shake things up. That was the case in his junk-bond-fueled takeover of National Can Co. in 1985, his celebrated turnaround of beverage maker Snapple in the late '90s and more-recent forays involving such brands as Cracker Barrel, Wendy's and Heinz. As one admirer, Harvard Business School professor John A. Deighton, put it: "He likes to throw gasoline and then light a match."
BUSINESS
April 18, 2007 | From Reuters
Tribune Co. will have to mount some persuasive arguments why regulators should allow real estate mogul Sam Zell to take the media company private, Federal Communications Commissioner Michael J. Copps said. "This is a multifaceted proceeding, so I am not going to prejudge it. I will look at it in terms of the world we live in," Copps said on the sidelines of the National Assn. of Broadcasters' annual conference.
BUSINESS
April 11, 2009 | Ameet Sachdev
Tribune Co. has disclosed that the U.S. Department of Labor has opened an investigation into the company's employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP. The Labor Department sent a subpoena March 2 to the Chicago-based media company seeking "an extensive range of documents," Tribune Co. said in a filing made Thursday as part of its bankruptcy case. The company said it produced documents that its lawyers say "substantially complied" with the subpoena.
BUSINESS
May 10, 2007 | James Rainey, Times Staff Writer
All the Pate children remember the long days of their youth, writing stories, running the printing press or selling newspapers for the Madill Record in Oklahoma. The tiny weekly was a pillar of the community in Madill, an oil-and-ag town of 3,400, so respected that two generations of Pates landed in the Oklahoma Press Hall of Fame. A 1990 plane crash killed the last Pate to publish the Record, effectively ending the family's local newspaper legacy.
BUSINESS
September 17, 2008 | Jerry Hirsch, Times Staff Writer
Several former and current Los Angeles Times employees filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the newspaper's corporate parent, Tribune Co., and its chief executive, Sam Zell, contending that reckless management is destroying the value of the company. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, alleges that Zell and former Tribune CEO Dennis J. FitzSimons devised a plan to take the company private to enrich themselves to the detriment of employees.
BUSINESS
January 16, 2009 | Michael Oneal
Tribune Co. passed an early hurdle in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case Thursday when a U.S. bankruptcy judge signed a motion authorizing the continuation of a short-term financing arrangement worth $300 million. Judge Kevin Carey also granted the company more time to file schedules of its assets and liabilities and other financial statements. The financing arrangement, supplied by Barclays Bank and secured by Tribune receivables, will last until April.