This morning, the Tribune Co. identified “Tribune Financial Advisor” from the charging documents as Nils Larsen. According to a Chicago Tribune report, “Larsen, a Tribune Co. executive vice president, is a 38-year-old financial whiz who was instrumental in Zell's takeover of Tribune Co.”

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-blagojevich-tribune-12-dec12,0,6000849.story

He was among Crain’s Chicago Business 40 under 40 in 2007, when he was identified as a point person in Sam Zell’s bid for the Tribune Co. According to Crain’s “He's been Mr. Zell's point man in arranging and negotiating $11.2 billion in financing for the deal… Mr. Larsen and a colleague thought up its arcane structure — an S-corporation owned by an employee stock ownership plan — over his cell phone while he was in Miami for the Super Bowl last winter. (His wife, Stacey, is a Chicago Bears employee.) Since the deal was announced, he and Tribune Treasurer Chandler Bigelow have negotiated the credit agreement funding the buyout.”

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/mag/article.pl?article_id=28758

A report in Huffington Post says Larsen has given $7,000.00 in political contributions. $2,000.00 to John Kerry in 2004 and the remainder through a Political Action Committee of a company Zell runs. http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php?type=name&lname=Larsen&fname=Nils

On Thursday, the Tribune Co. identified documents related to layoffs as among those being subpoenaed by the US Attorney in connection to the Blagojevich scandal. A person named Tribune Financial Advisor, Larsen, was put under pressure to terminate members of the newspaper’s Editorial Board by the governor. In return Governor Rod Blagojevich would approve state support of the Wrigley Field sale, expected to be worth at least $100 million to the Tribune Co.

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2008/12/tribune-subpoenaed-in-blagojevich-probe.html