U.S. newspaper publisher Tribune Company announced yesterday it has come to an agreement with creditors that will see it exit bankruptcy protection later this year, Reuters reported today.

According to the plan, the company will emerge fron bankruptcy "significantly deleveraged, with its business units intact and with adequate liquidity for operating and capital needs," the company said in a statement. The Tribune Co., which publishes the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, filed for bankruptcy in December 2008.

The plan shows that creditors have "agreed to wipe out much of Tribune's roughly US$13 billion in debt," and in return will own the media company, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Real estate mogul Sam Zell took the company private in December 2007, and in doing so, brought the company's debt load to more than $12 billion. Although Tribune kept up with payments on the $12 billion debt incurred from going private, sliding ad sales and circulation, exacerbated by the poor economic climate, put the squeeze on the debt-heavy company.

"The banks and hedge funds that own the debt used to finance Tribune's leveraged buyout will end up owning nearly all of the company: 91.2%. They include J.P. Morgan and Angelo, Gordon & Co.," an article from the Los Angeles Times, out today, reported. "The agreement also is supported by the unsecured creditors committee, which is expected to drop its previously filed motion asking for permission to sue the company over the propriety of Tribune's 2007 leveraged buyout. That litigation threatened to pitch the bankruptcy case into a legal morass that could have delayed Tribune's emergence from Chapter 11."