Chandler stock sale ends ties with Times

With a four-page regulatory footnote to a history touching three centuries, the Chandlers have bowed out.

The Southern California family that has been associated with the Los Angeles Times for 120 years severed its ties by selling 20.4 million shares of Tribune Co. stock to Wall Street’s Goldman Sachs & Co., the family said in a regulatory filing Wednesday. The stock was sold for $31.19 a share, or $634.8 million, in a transaction that closes today. Goldman is expected to resell the stock to other investors.

As previously reported, the Chandlers agreed to dispose of their remaining Tribune shares in a block trade with Goldman after they surrendered 27.8 million shares for $34 a share in a tender offer that was the first stage in a two-step buyout of Tribune led by Chicago financier Sam Zell. The first sale, under Tribune bylaws, forced the Chandlers to give up their three seats on the company board.

The Chandlers, heirs to a media dynasty founded by Gen. Harrison Gray Otis, acquired the stock in the 2000 sale of Times Mirror Co., the Times’ former corporate parent, to Chicago-based Tribune, owner of the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Cubs baseball team, nine other papers and 23 television stations.

With Tribune’s advertising revenue shrinking, there has been speculation that the company might have trouble obtaining the $4 billion-plus needed to close the deal.

However, two people familiar with the transaction said the Chandlers’ decision to sell now, at $57 million less than they would have received at $34 a share when the deal closed, was not influenced by the uncertainty of the financing. The family had planned from the outset to sell its stake as soon as it lost its board voice, said the two people, who declined to be identified because they had not been authorized to speak publicly.

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thomas.mulligan@latimes.com