Saying he had not anticipated such a steep decline in the newspaper business, Sam Zell told Bloomberg Television today that he made a mistake when he bought Tribune.
“I was too optimistic in terms of the newspaper’s ability to preserve its position,” he said.
Zell took Tribune Co. private in a leveraged $8.2 billion deal. Things didn’t work out like he planned. After lots of layoffs in a bid to reduce costs, he filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December of 2008. In today’s inteview, the billionaire said the company is looking at “all options,” as “the newspaper model in its current form does not work.”