An investment group formed by former hedge fund manager William Z. Wyatt is close to a deal to acquire newspaper publisher Tronc, according to people familiar with the matter. Wyatt was previously a manager at Starboard Value until June 2018, a New York-based investment adviser with a history of investing deeply undervalued publicly traded US companies and pushing them into mergers and acquisitions, as it did with Internet pioneer Yahoo in 2016. At least one other private equity bid for Tronc may also be in the works, Chicago Tribune reported on Wednesday.