Billionaire investor Sam Zell completed the $8.2 billion buyout of Tribune Co., ending the newspaper publisher’s 24 years as a publicly traded company.
Zell becomes chief executive officer and chairman, taking on about $12 billion in debt as advertising revenue from the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune declines. The purchase follows an industrywide plunge in stock prices as well as Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of Dow Jones & Co. this month and McClatchy Co.’s takeover of Knight Ridder Inc. last year.\