Tribune to end ownership plan, start profit sharing

Tribune Co., the newspaper publisher that filed for bankruptcy protection in December, said it will replace the employee stock-ownership plan it began in December 2007 with a profit-sharing program.

The publisher will end the so-called ESOP once it emerges from bankruptcy, Chief Administrative Officer Gerald Spector said in a memo to staff today. Tribune employees were each allocated a portion of the company when it was taken private for $8.3 billion by billionaire Sam Zell in 2007.

Zell said last week in an interview on Bloomberg Television that with "some reasonable luck," the company will emerge from bankruptcy by the end of next year's first quarter.

Chicago-based Tribune, which publishes the Los Angeles Times and Baltimore Sun, is also beginning a match to employees' 401(k) retirement plans for as much as 4 percent, according to the memo. Union employees may not be eligible for all the same benefits, Spector said in the memo.

All employees will be eligible for a discretionary profit- sharing plan, Spector said. He didn't provide details of that program.

Gary Weitman, a spokesman for Tribune, declined to comment in an e-mail.