Brooke Sutherland, Columnist

Tronc's Empire of the Sun

It's not clear buying the Sun-Times gives the Chicago Tribune owner something it needs.

May 17, 2017 at 4:20 PM UTC

Brooke Sutherland is Bloomberg News' Boston bureau chief and writes the Industrial Strength Newsletter. She was previously a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering deals and industrial companies and an M&A reporter for Bloomberg News.

1495036331_pic — Photographer: Scott Olson/Getty Images

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Tronc Inc. is back in the news.

The owner of the Chicago Tribune announced late Monday that it's planning to acquire its crosstown rival, the Chicago Sun-Times. It's a deal that Tronc's chairman and largest investor Michael Ferro has been contemplating at least since last spring, telling the Chicago Tribune in a March 2016 Q&A, "Why can't we share financial costs and things like that, but let them run on their own?" Approval by anti-trust regulators is no guarantee, but the Sun-Times' painstaking (some would say sad) efforts to draw out any other suitors would seem to point toward the deal closing: