As I wrote yesterday on BloggingStocks, the rumor was that private equity firms had little interest in Tribune Co. (NYSE: TRB).

The good news is that there are a lot of billionaires in the US -- some of whom would like Tribune, or at least a piece of it. In fact, there are now at least two offers for the company.

First, Tribune's biggest shareholder, the Chandler family, whose ancestors created the Los Angeles Times, is offering about $31.70 per share. It's a funky deal, which includes $19.30 in cash and a planned spin-off of the broadcasting assets.

With a 20% equity stake, Chandler certainly has leverage.

The other offer comes from two California billionaires, Eli Broad and Ron Burkle. Their offer is also funky. They are willing to invest $500 million in the company and borrow $10.5 billion to pay a big dividend to shareholders. It's basically a leveraged recapitalization transaction.

In some ways, this represents further validation of the deep troubles in the newspaper business. On the news of the offers, Tribune's stock is up $0.55 to $30.89.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.