LOS ANGELES – Billionaire businessman Eli Broad and supermarket magnate Ron Burkle have teamed to submit a bid for Tribune Co. (TRB), The Associated Press has learned.
Details of the offer by the companies controlled by the two businessmen were not disclosed. A person familiar with the offer who was not authorized to publicly discuss it confirmed Wednesday the bid was submitted.
Broad declined to comment on the report. A call to Burkle's office was not immediately returned.
The bid comes one day after the Tribune Co. replaced Dean Baquet as editor of the Los Angeles Times because Baquet refused to make mandated cost cuts at the paper.
Broad and Burkle have long said they would be interested in returning the Times to local ownership. A third billionaire, entertainment mogul David Geffen, is known to be interested in buying the Times. A call to Geffen's office Wednesday was not immediately returned.
Tribune Co. is the owner of the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Cubs.
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