Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is preparing to make a bid to buy two of the country’s 10 largest newspapers, one of them — the Los Angeles Times — revealed late on Friday.
Executives from Murdoch’s News Corp. have had preliminary talks to buy the Times and the Chicago Tribune, t
he paper said.
Sam Zell’s Tribune Co., which owns both papers is due to emerge from bankruptcy by the end of the year and the group would then be owned by two investment firms and a bank.
According to the Times, Murdoch has long shown an interest in buying the paper. “On trips to Los Angeles, he is known to mark up the newspaper with a Sharpie pen to illustrate how he would design pages,” the paper said.
If Murdoch were successful he would then own papers in the three biggest markets in the country — he already owns both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post in New York.
The Times, which claimed in the article to be worth around $400 million, said at least three other groups have shown an interest in buying the paper, the fourth largest in the country by circulation. The Chicago Tribune is the ninth largest.
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