April 2 (Bloomberg) -- Tribune Co. Chairman Sam Zell will have to sell assets besides the Chicago Cubs baseball team and its Newsday newspaper on Long Island to pay back debt maturing in 2008 and 2009, bond research firm Gimme Credit said.

Tribune will need to look at selling other assets, such as a 31 percent stake in the Food Network, to pay off $1.85 billion in debt coming due by the end of 2009, Chicago-based credit analyst Dave Novosel wrote in a report today. Tribune, also in Chicago, is the second-biggest U.S. newspaper publisher.

Bonds due in 2015 are trading at about 40 cents on the dollar, ``suggesting the company is on the verge of bankruptcy,'' Novosel wrote. Tribune is under pressure to meet payments on debt that ballooned to about $13 billion in December when Zell took the company private.

Selling the Chicago Cubs, Wrigley Field and Tribune's 25 percent stake in the Comcast Corp.'s regional sports television network could bring in $1 billion, while the sale of Newsday could be worth $600 million, Novosel wrote. Even including the $121 million sale of the company's Hollywood production studio in January, Tribune is still looking at a shortfall, he said.

``Asset sales will provide sufficient coverage of interest and principal this year, but 2009 could be more problematic,'' Novosel wrote. Declining advertising sales in 2008 will lower Tribune's revenue by about 3 percent, he said.

To bridge the gap, Tribune could sell its stake in Food Network for $500 million to $1 billion, Novosel said.

E.W. Scripps Co., owner of 69 percent of the Food Network, has had talks with Tribune's previous and current management about buying the remaining stake in the cable-TV channel, Scripps spokesman Mark Kroeger said in an interview.

Tribune said last month that it is reviewing all of its assets. Company spokesman Gary Weitman declined to say today whether Tribune plans to sell its stake in the Food Network.

To contact the reporter on this story: Leon Lazaroff in New York at llazaroff@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 2, 2008 16:49 EDT