• by Sara Guaglione , March 4, 2016

In the wake of a major management shakeup, Tribune Publishing will still bid for the Orange County Register and the Riverside Press-Enterprise, Tribune Publishing’s new chief executive said Wednesday during a conference call with analysts.

During Tribune’s earnings release and conference call, CEO Justin Dearborn said the company is still actively working on a bid for the assets of Freedom Communications, setting aside rumors that the company would forgo its efforts to acquire Freedom's two newspapers and related assets following executive shakeups at Tribune.

Freedom Communications filed for bankruptcy protection in November and will sell its properties in a court-supervised auction this month.

However, Dearborn noted that “there is a price where we would walk away” from the Freedom bidding, according to a report from the OC Register.

Tribune lost $2.7 million last year on $1.67 billion of revenue. Their plans to acquire Freedom’s newspapers is funded mainly by an investment from Michael Ferro, who purchased a 16.6% stake in Tribune for $44.4 million earlier this year.

As Publishers Daily previously reported, Tribune Publishing submitted an early, “stalking horse” bid in the lead-up to the bankruptcy auction, in order to set a minimum price for bidding later during the auction. The amount of the bid wasn’t disclosed.

Tribune faces competition from Digital First Media, publisher of newspapers like the Los Angeles Daily News and the Denver Post, which submitted a rival bid, also undisclosed.

The auction is scheduled to take place on March 16. A final decision by a federal bankruptcy judge could be made as early as March 21.

Tribune wants to buy the OC Register and Press-Enterprise to expand its business base in the Southern California region, while cutting costs among its newspapers by consolidating printing and distribution operations.

Last week, Publishers Daily reported that Jack Griffin had been ousted from his position as Tribune Publishing’s CEO, a move that was reportedly organized by a partner he recently brought into the company, Michael Ferro -- the same Ferro who invested all that money into Tribune.

Dearborn, a medical-industry executive, is a longtime associate of Ferro’s. According to the L.A. Times, Dearborn was previously CEO of Merge Healthcare Inc., a company which Ferro financially backed.

Dearborn’s first moves as new Tribune Publishing CEO was to merge the roles of editor and publisher on each of the chain’s eight newspapers. He also expressed plans to move operations back to the company’s home base of Chicago. Tribune’s President of Digital, Denise Warren, announced she had chosen not to relocate to Chicago from New York and was out immediately.