The New York Times reports today that Eli Broad is considering a bid for the Tribune Company, which owns two dozen TV stations, the Chicago Cubs, and 11 daily newspapers, including The Chicago Tribune, Newsday, and The Los Angeles Times.
Broad is one of the world's leading art collectors:
"Avid supporters of contemporary art, Mr. Broad and his wife, Edythe, have created one of the world's finest collections. Since 1984, The Broad Art Foundation has operated an active "lending library" of its extensive collection to more than 400 museums and university galleries worldwide. In 2001-2003, an exhibition of the Broads' collection was shown at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC; the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. Mr. Broad was the founding chairman and is a life trustee of The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and is currently a trustee of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and vice chairman of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where the Broads recently announced a major gift to build The Broad Contemporary Art Museum."
Here is a link to the Broad Art Foundation. Here is a Bloomberg story from 2003; it said that he had put together a collection that "curators and dealers estimate at $500 million, a figure Broad says is about right. His collection includes work by about 175 artists and is dominated by works of Pop Art by Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, abstract pieces by Jasper Johns and Cy Twombly and work by 1980s artists such as Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons and Jean-Michel Basquiat."
