Sam Zell: "I Have No Intention Of Selling The L.A. Times. Period. End Of Speech."

Posted by: Jon Fine on April 13, 2007

So says the new owner of Tribune when interviewed by Maria Bartiromo in this week’s BusinessWeek.

Full interview is here

Some other interesting bits:

“I don’t have any plans to sell any newspapers. We’re going to own all of the newspapers for the foreseeable future.” (Emphasis added.)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, he’s not terribly worried about how leveraged and debt-ridden his deal leaves Tribune:

“If you look at the structure we basically have in place, cash flow more than covers the anticipated debt level. So whereas everyone is portraying the newspaper business as dead, I think Mark Twain’s quote is applicable…that reports of its death are highly exaggerated.”

And in response to the inevitable ‘are job cuts coming?’ question:

“I don’t have enough information at this point to answer that.

Zell’s moves with Tribune will be interesting to watch, but I’m glad I will be watching it from outside the company.

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