Gannett has offered to acquire all of the outstanding shares of common stock of Tribune Publishing, which owns the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and nine other dailies, for around $815 million.
The offer price of $12.25 per Tribune share represents a 63 percent premium to the closing stock price on April 22, 2016. The bid would include assuming around $390 million of Tribune debt outstanding as of Dec. 31, 2015. Gannett said that the deal is expected to deliver synergies of around $50 million a year.
Gannett owns USA Today and more than 100 other media properties across the U.S., including the Detroit Free Press, Cincinnati Enquirer, Des Moines Register, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Arizona Republic.
Gannett chairman John Jeffry Louis said: "A combination with Tribune would rapidly advance Gannett's strategy to grow the USA Today Network, the largest local to national network of journalists in the country, to include more local markets and new platforms, which we believe will benefit readers and result in significant and sustained value creation for Gannett stockholders."
Robert J. Dickey, president and chief executive officer of Gannett, said: "We believe Tribune shares the new Gannett's unwavering commitment to journalistic excellence and delivering superior content on all platforms. In this respect, the proposed combination of Gannett and Tribune would bring together two highly complementary organizations with a shared goal of providing trusted, premium content for the readers and communities we serve."