Tribune, LA Times and Union-Tribune publisher, renames itself tronc

The newspaper chain that publishes the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union-Tribune aounced Thursday that it is renaming itself tronc Inc., effective June 20.

Meanwhile, a San Diego-based investor, Capital Structures Realty Advisors, has filed a lawsuit against Tribune for continuing to reject proposed buyout offers by the rival Gaett Co.

Tribune Publishing Co. said its new moniker, a play on Tribune online content, “captures the essence of the company’s mission” to create and distribute material as it transforms from a legacy news company to a technology and content firm.

“Our industry requires an iovative approach and a fundamentally different way of operating,” Tribune Chairman Michael Ferro said.

“Our transformation strategy -- which has attracted over $114 million in growth capital -- is focused on leveraging artificial intelligence and machine leaing to improve the user experience and better monetize our world-class content in order to deliver personalized content to our 60 million monthly users and drive value for all of our stakeholders,” Ferro said. “Our rebranding to tronc represents the maer in which we will pool our technology and content resources to execute on our strategy.”

On the same day, Tribune will also switch its stock listing from the New York Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq. The company will trade under the symbol TRNC.