Due diligence underway for all of Tribune, as Hartford group forms to buy Courant

As the bidding war for Tribune Publishing heats up, groups of investors are quietly forming allegiances on the sidelines in hopes of snagging newspaper assets expected to be sold off in the process.

The latest group to emerge as potential buyers for a piece of the publisher behind Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News, the Baltimore Sun and six other dailies have their eye on the Hartford Courant, sources said. The group of about eight wealthy business leaders from the Connecticut area held a brainstorming meeting Monday afternoon to save their hometown paper, which traces its roots to a weekly newspaper founded in 1764, making it older than the nation itself, sources said.