Chicago Real estate magnate Sam Zell has made a late bid for the Tribune Co.

News reports said that a special committee of Tribune board members was close to settling on an internal overhaul when Zell made the last-minute bid.

According to reports, Zell’s bid involves buying the entire company with the participation of an employee stock ownership plan. This may be the most appealing offer to date for Tribune and could signal the last opportunity for the media company to sell all of its assets together, versus a piecemeal sell.

Zell’s bid for Tribune all but eliminates other offers including a bid from the Chandler family, the largest single holder in the company, designed to take the company private in a deal reportedly worth about $7.6 billion. The second bid was from Los Angeles billionaires Ronald Burkle and Eli Broad and was said to be for $34 per share, putting its value around $8 billion.

Zell sold Equity Office Properties Trust, which is the biggest office landlord in the United States, to the Blackstone Group in an auction earlier this month, pocketing nearly $1 billion in profit from the sale.

Shares in Tribune were up 1 percent (31 cents) to $31 in afternoon trading Monday.