The company, based in Madison, N.J., said it had recently completed an earlier program to repurchase $1 billion of its shares.
Mr. Grenesko said Tribune might begin those repurchases as early as today, although the company will have to stop any buyback when it begins its tender offer for Times Mirror shares, probably next week.
The company has spent more than $14 billion to buy back its shares over the last two years, including a $1.4 billion repurchase authorized earlier that the company has not completed.
While share repurchases for early employees are not uncommon among older startups, what's also interesting here is the insight on some of the company's financials.
And Chesapeake's board has announced that it will end the well-repurchase program 18 months early and is reviewing the exact nature of Mr. McClendon's financing arrangements.
"We should be cautious before extrapolating too many conclusions about the entire repurchase program based on these early and small redemptions," Neiman wrote.
Zell was only personally involved in it during an early stage loan to Tribune that funded the repurchase of some of its stock.
A.I.G. also said it had substantially completed the repurchase of $5 billion in stock from $8 billion authorized earlier in the year and planned to accelerate the repurchase of the remaining $3 billion.
The largest maker of networking equipment earlier said it added as much as $10 billion to its stock repurchase program, perhaps in an attempt to mollify investors reeling from the painful aftermath of November 10 earnings.
After that, about 10percentt of the transactions were share repurchasing agreements where the company itself buys stock back from early investors and employees.
