In 2016, Michael Ferro, a tech entrepreneur and former owner of the Chicago Sun-Times, became Tribune Publishing’s largest shareholder and nonexecutive chairman. He briefly named the company Tronc, and when newspaper chain Gannett made an unsolicited — and ultimately unsuccessful — bid to buy Tribune Publishing, Ferro recruited Soon-Shiong to help fend off the hostile takeover, with Tribune selling him 4.7 million newly issued shares at $15 a share.
