This just in: Sam Zell puts L.A. Times and Tribune buildings on the block

You read that right: Our new owner is putting two of Tribune's most historic properties up for sale. Thomas Mulligan, our senior financial writer, has the details:

The company said it had sent out a request for proposals to “several of the country’s leading real-estate firms,” seeking to maximize the value of the sites, which are the headquarters of the Los Angeles Times and of Tribune, respectively.

“Both Tribune Tower and Times Mirror Square are iconic structures, deeply intertwined with the history of this company,” Tribune Chief Executive Sam Zell said in an e-mail to employees today. “But they are also underutilized, and as employee-owners, it’s in our best interests to maximize the value of all our assets.”

Zell, a real-estate billionaire, said the company would be focusing on options that would allow for “some level of ongoing occupancy in both buildings” by The Times and Tribune.

Under Zell, Tribune has focused on “tax-efficient” transactions, structured so that Tribune retains enough of an ownership stake to avoid triggering the massive capital-gains tax liability that would come with a conventional sale. That approach was taken in the company’s recent, $650-million sale of Newsday -- the Long Island, N.Y., newspaper -- to Cablevision Systems Corp.

Thomas adds that this doesn't necessarily mean there will be a sale, or that any transaction would happen immediately. More in our full story to come.

-- Veronique de Turenne

Comments

[Tevian]

Yeah so Sam finally outs his true dream, putting the real estate of the Chicago Tower and the LA Times Mirror Square complex into play.

Talk about selling people down the river.

The newspapers he picked up in his debt-wallowing (oh excuse me, I meant to say "leveraged") deal are all going to be killed off, one at a time, just written off at attractively tax-reductive moments...

Meanwhile the whole thing of measuring productivity by column inches and ditching editorial content anyway to "right-size" the papers down to a 50-50 match with ad pages is insane, and a death knell in a gone-bad advertising season. Lean times are when you need a paper with something to appeal to everyone, not some bozo'd thing with five pages of AP rewrites and five pages of please buy this used SUV. (No offense to the AP, mind you)

I feel like Zell is doing a catch22 number on the newspapers. Putting his foot on their necks and then looking down and saying "wow look at that, they're not even breathing any more, somebody call the coroner and my accountant."

[Frank Deteen]

Sam did not get the nickname "the grim reaper of business" by being a nice person ... to the contrary, Sam earned this moniker because the only things he holds in high reguard are his opinion of himself and his loathing of "weak" business practices. Sam is the largest "landlord" of seniors living in aged qualified comunities. Sam doesnot believe in giving anyone an even chance because to do so would be detremental to his self interest (maximization of post operating expense profits, minimization of tax consequence). Given the scope of his financial interests, Sam is unquestionably a major "elder abuser". Too bad Sam's not accountable to anyone. (gee LA Times, do you think there might be a story here?