Zell’s Past May Hint at Tribune Plan

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What kind of a news baron would Sam Zell make?


With Tribune Co. seriously considering the Chicago real estate billionaire’s buyout offer, it’s no idle question, the Los Angeles Times reports.


Besides amassing the nation’s largest collection of office buildings in his Equity Office Properties Trust , which was sold last month to Blackstone Group for $23 billion , Zell, 65, has a long history with smokestack industries, having invested in makers of bicycles, barges, mattresses and airplane rivets.


But his only major foray into the media business came with Cincinnati-based Jacor Communications Inc., which he bought out of bankruptcy in 1993 and turned into one of the nation’s largest radio-station chains before selling it to Clear Channel Communications Inc. in 1999. Typically, Zell bought smart and sold smart. He claimed in an interview with Barron’s to have pocketed $1.3 billion on an initial investment of $70 million.


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