Lee Enterprises -- owner of the Quad City Times and Muscatine Journal -- says it plans to file a "prepackaged" voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan by Dec. 12 as it moves to finalize a debt restructuring announced in September.
The newspaper chain said it wasn't able to get about 6 percent of its senior lenders to agree to the restructuring plan and needed to use the bankruptcy process to complete the refinancing deal. Lee's properties in Tucson, AZ and Madison, WI, are not part of the planned filing.
Lee Chairman and CEO Mary Junck said in the news release issued Friday (12/2) that the company had “achieved agreements with an overwhelming majority of our creditors on reasonable terms that preserve stockholders’ interests in the company with only 13 percent dilution.
"As we previously noted as a possibility, implementation will require a favorable, voluntary, prepackaged Chapter 11 process to bind the remaining minority of non-consenting lenders to the terms," Junck said. "While such a filing falls under bankruptcy laws, it differs significantly from most such filings because it preserves interests of our current stockholders and all other parties."
CLICK HERE to download a copy of the Lee news release on the planned filing.
CLICK HERE for more on the planned voluntary bankruptcy filing from the Wall Street Journal.
