A group of former publishers, executives and editors of the Tribune Co. and Times Mirror Co. filed suit Thursday against major shareholders who benefited from the $8.2 billion takeover of the media conglomerate.
You won’t find Tribune Co.’s bankruptcy lawyers looking in the want ads any time soon. Professional fees topped $150 million last month in the newspaper publisher and television station operator’s Chapter 11 case.
The one-time CEO of DirecTV who has been publisher of Tribune’s Los Angeles Times since August 2008 will attempt to lead the beleagured company out of bankruptcy as president and CEO.
Tribune’s Houston CW affiliate plans to launch a morning show Monday that will serve as a bookend to the unconventional newsreel-style 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. newscasts it introduced in March. Described as a provocative and unpredictable information and entertainment show, Eye Opener will combine local news, traffic and weather reports from Houston-based Mia Gradney with other content originating from Tribune’s Chicago headquarters.
Former shareholders in the media company are bracing for a possible barrage of litigation aimed at clawing back more than $8 billion in payouts received in the company’s ill-fated buyout.
Competing Tribune lenders are still fiddling over the bankrupt company — while its WPIX New York burns. The confirmation hearing for bankrupt media conglomerate Tribune is expected to resume today, after months of haggling among creditors, if court-ordered talks yesterday between two competing groups of lenders do not result in a settlement, a source close to the situation said.
Exclusives
In Chicago, Trib is King, But ESPN Moving In
Chicago is the nation’s third-largest market when it comes to local online advertising, and the Tribune Co.’s Web outlets dominate (its WGNTV.com boasts that it’s the city’s No. 1 local news site), but sports giant ESPN is muscling in and stealing some of the Trib’s home court advantage with its own local play.
Tribune Co bondholders led by hedge fund Aurelius Capital Management on Monday filed a revised bankruptcy reorganization plan for the media company, hoping to overcome objections by senior creditors.
David Kurtz, a managing director for Lazard Ltd., was the first witness in a two-week hearing that could decide the fate of the media conglomerate. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey must decide whether to approve Tribune Co.’s proposed reorganization plan, a competing plan submitted by dissident bondholders, or neither.
After 27 months of legal wrangling, Tribune Co. and its creditors today are finally headed into what could be the deciding chapter of the company’s tangled bankruptcy saga.
On Tuesday, Tribune filed a letter with its bankruptcy court judge, then re-filed it the next day with lots of blacked-out material. Among the redacted material: details on the $268 million insider bonanza the year before the Chapter 11 filing and the payment of $23.7 million to big lender J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. out of the view of the bankruptcy judge.
Tribune Co. Chief Operating Officer Gerry Spector, a long-time associate of real estate billionaire Sam Zell, is leaving the Chicago-based media company he has helped lead since Zell took it private three years ago.
A group of lenders to bankrupt Tribune Co. withdrew its reorganization plan for the media company, leaving creditors with three other options when they begin voting on how to end the two-year-old Chapter 11 case.
When the Tribune Co. was bought out three years ago, hundreds of employees were paid out for their shares of stock and other compensation, including bonuses. Now creditors want that money back.
Bankrupt broadcaster and newspaper publisher Tribune Co. will enter the home stretch of its reorganization this week after a judge said he expects to clear the way for creditors to vote on how to end the Chapter 11 case.
Federal authorities are taking a closer look at the stock transfer at the heart of billionaire Sam Zell’s disastrous leveraged buyout of Tribune Co., after a U.S. District Court last week determined a portion of the 2007 deal was a “prohibited transaction” under federal law.
Sam Zell, the billionaire real estate mogul who engineered the disastrous 2007 buyout of Tribune Co., said he will resign his position as chairman shortly after the company exits bankruptcy.
Tribune Co creditors asked a Delaware judgeon Friday to let them try to recover millions of dollars awarded to insiders in the year prior to the media company’s bankruptcy, saying they can do a better job than Tribune can.
The company wants a judge to OK paying executives up to $43 million in bonuses.
A group of creditors in the Tribune Co. bankruptcy case is suing virtually all the key principals involved in the company’s $8.2 billion buyout, alleging that greed and misconduct of the media company’s lenders, advisers and own leaders led to its financial downfall.
Tribune Interactive President Marc Chase, SVP-COO Jeff Kapugi and EVP Carolyn Gilbert — longtime associates of Randy Michaels, who resigned as CEO last month — are leaving the company; others are expected to follow suit.
