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Articles tagged Patrick Soon-Shiong (32)

It’s a few years behind its East Coast brethren in New York and Washington. But tens of millions in new investment and ambitious digital plans are showing a path back to its former prominence — and beyond.
Tribune Publishing wants to sell at a higher price, but it will likely have trouble finding someone willing to pay it.
One’s a family-controlled, century-plus-old newspaper chain, known for believing in its civic mission but not for its digital strategy. The other is, well, Tronc. With an assist from L.A.’s richest man, could this be a path forward?
Rupert Murdoch owning the New York Daily News? A McCormick controlling the Chicago Tribune again? The L.A. Times pulling a Washington Post, aiming to run the industry’s underlying infrastructure? A lot of change is coming soon.
“If the Post is like Amazon, happy to sell individual slices of its vertically integrated whole, the Times is perhaps more like Apple, bringing its ethos and voice to a more diverse array of products.”
What will happen to the price of Tronc shares as investors, a good number of speculators among them, assess the post-L.A. Times value of a major daily newspaper chain effectively halved in the deal?
“Any would-be scenarios involving Tronc include odd tradeoffs, weird valuations, and questions of sheer feasibility.”
For a company that’s known little but chaos in its short life, the degree of uncertainty is now as high as ever. Just about the only thing we know: Tronc execs will come out well in the end.
As much of Tronc’s turbulence looks to be clearing, new questions are emerging about who will next lead the big metro chain.
“To whom will we now turn to enliven the continuing conflagration that is the American newspaper industry?”