Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Tribune Co. ex-directors, former executives agree to settle suit


Sam Zell and more than 50 ex-directors and former executives of the Tribune Co. have agreed to pay $200 million to settle a suit filed by unsecured creditors, the Chicago Tribune and others reported.
The news comes more than ten years after the company went private in a leveraged buyout that Zell dubbed “the deal from hell.” The company eventually filed for bankruptcy. It came out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2012.
The settlement agreement is pending approval in a Delaware federal bankruptcy court.
Despite the deal, “thousands of ordinary shareholders may still be forced to give back some of the proceeds from the 2007 buyout — if the litigation trust representing the unsecured creditors prevails in still-unsettled actions,” the Tribune reported.
The deadline for objections to the agreement is June 17, with an approval hearing set for July 11.
The settling defendants include former Tribune Co. CEO Dennis FitzSimons; Crane Kenney, president of business operations for the Cubs; Miles White, chairman and CEO of Abbott; and Tim Knight, CEO of Tribune Publishing, the Tribune reported.

No comments: