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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: techguerrilla who wrote (8954)	3/4/2005 11:37:13 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 363091

Sosa trade causes Tribune to take $13.5M charge _________________________________ March 04, 2005 (AP) - Sammy Sosa has one more big hit coming for the Chicago Cubs - a $13.5 million jolt to the bottom line of his old team's corporate owners. Tribune Co., the media conglomerate whose holdings include the Cubs, said in a regulatory filing Friday that last month's trade of Sosa to the Baltimore Orioles will cause it to take a $13.5 million pretax charge in the first quarter. The costly transaction merited only a two-sentence mention in Tribune's 114-page annual report, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company, which typically mentions the baseball team only in passing in its filings and on conference calls with analysts, did not discuss the reason. But Dennis FitzSimons, Tribune's chairman, president and chief executive officer, said at a media-industry investment conference this week that the charge results from a "timing impact." He said the timing of the trade caused Tribune to accelerate the payment of Sosa's salary, reducing the company's first-quarter net income by nearly 3 cents per share. The public discussion of the Sosa trade's financial effect caused a chuckle among the crowd of institutional investors, who normally focus on results from the company's 14 daily newspapers and 26 television stations. "I hear some laughter out there," FitzSimons said at the conference. "Sammy wasn't cheap." Sosa was still owed $25 million on a $72 million multi-year contract when the Cubs dealt the slugger over the winter. Because controversy and declining production had diminished his trade value, the Cubs needed to send the Orioles $16.15 million in order to consummate the deal - causing the dip in first-quarter earnings. Tribune has owned the Cubs since 1981, when it acquired the team from the Wrigley family for $20.5 million. The company's stock rose 18 cents to close at $41.06 on the New York Stock Exchange, down 2.6 percent this year.