People walk past a newspaper box across from the Chicago Tribune tower in Chicago, Illinois December 8, 2008. Publisher and broadcaster Tribune Co., a privately held company, which publishes the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy... 
 
 U.S. media giant Tribune Co emerged from bankruptcy on Monday, ending four years of Chapter 11 reorganization and potentially setting itself up for a future without newspapers. 
 
 Tribune's controlling owners, which include hedge funds Oaktree Capital and Angelo, Gordon & Co, and JPMorgan Chase & Co intend to sell most, if not all, of its newspapers and already have expressions of interest for The Los Angeles Times, The Orlando Sentinel and others, Reuters has reported. 
 
 For now at least, the Chicago-based company said its portfolio would include eight major daily newspapers and 23 TV stations. 
 
 Tribune's newspapers remain profitable despite the falloff in readers and advertising. Veteran newspaper analyst John Morton, President of Morton Research, estimated the Los Angeles Times could fetch $130 million at an auction, while the Chicago Tribune could garner $86 million in a sale. 
 
 Oaktree is the biggest Tribune shareholder, owning about 23 percent of the company while Angelo Gordon and JP Morgan each hold a 9 percent stake. 
 
 "Tribune will emerge as a dynamic multi-media company with a great mix of profitable assets, powerful brands in major markets, sufficient liquidity for operations and investments and significantly less debt," Chief Executive Eddy Hartenstein said in a statement. 
 
 As part of the Chapter 11 exit, the company closed on a new $1.1 billion senior secured term loan and a new $300 million asset-based revolving credit facility. 
 
 The term loan will be used to fund certain payments under the plan of reorganization and the revolving credit facility will be used to fund ongoing operations, the company said. 
 
 Tribune's most actively traded debt, a $5.5 billion loan due in May 2014, was most recently trading at 83 cents on the dollar, according to Thomson Reuters data. 
 
 Upon exiting bankruptcy, Tribune will have issued to former creditors a mix of about 100 million shares of new class A common stock and new class B common stock, and new warrants to purchase shares of new class A or class B common stock. 
 
 Hartenstein will remain CEO until the new Tribune board names a new management team. Peter Liguori, a former Discovery Communications chief operating officer, is expected to be named CEO. 
 
 The company announced a seven-person board that includes Hartenstein, Liguori, former Yahoo CEO Ross Levinsohn and Peter Murphy, Walt Disney's former top strategic planning executive. 
 
 Tribune is expected to focus on building its TV operations. In its portfolio, it owns WGN America, a national feed of Tribune's Chicago TV stations that it distributes through cable and satellite to more than 76 million U.S. homes. 
 
 Horizon Media analyst Brad Adgate said WGN could expand its base by 20 million to 25 million homes if it adds original programming to its lineup. 
 
 Tribune's TV operations are estimated to account for $2.85 billion of the company's $7 billion valuation, while its publishing assets are estimated to represent $623 million, according to a report by its financial advisor, Lazard. The rest of its value resides in assets including its 30 percent stake in the Food Network and its cash balance. 
 
 In November, Tribune received regulatory approval from the Federal Communications Commission to transfer its broadcast licenses to the owners who would take it over after emerging from bankruptcy. 
 
 Real estate magnate Sam Zell stunned the media industry when he took the company private in 2007 in an $8.2 billion leveraged buyout that burdened the company with debt and that many observers warned would be disastrous. Tribune was forced into bankruptcy in 2008. 
 
 The company's reorganization plan was confirmed by the Delaware bankruptcy court in July. 
 
 The case is In re: Tribune Co et al, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware, No. 08-13141. 
 
 (Reporting by Liana B. Baker in New York and Ashutosh Pandey in Bangalore; Editing by Nick Zieminski) 

 The Los Angeles Times is among the properties of Tribune Co. The media company sought bankruptcy protection in 2008. (Mel Melcon, Los Angeles Times / ) 
 
 Tribune Co. is expected to emerge from bankruptcy protection Monday with a new board of directors composed largely of entertainment-industry veterans. 
 
 Exiting bankruptcy would mark a milestone for Tribune, the parent of the Los Angeles Times and other newspaper and television properties. 
 
 Tribune sought Bankruptcy Court protection in December 2008 after a leveraged buyout by real estate magnate Sam Zell saddled the company with $12.9 billion in debt just as advertising revenue was collapsing. It is one of the longest bankruptcy cases in U.S. corporate history. 
 
 Tribune will emerge as a slimmed-down entity with a more stable financial base. But the media conglomerate will still be buffeted by the larger forces pounding the newspaper industry, specifically uncertainty over whether papers can generate sufficient revenue from digital operations. 
 
 "Tribune is far stronger than it was when we began the Chapter 11 process four years ago and, given the budget planning we've done, the company is well-positioned for success in 2013," Eddy Hartenstein, Tribune's chief executive, wrote in a note to employees Sunday night. 
 
 Tribune's new board of directors is expected to be made up of a who's who of Hollywood players. Most have no hands-on experience running newspapers and television stations, which are Tribune's biggest assets. 
 
 Five of the seven members have ties to the entertainment and media industries, including Hartenstein and Peter Liguori, a former News Corp. executive who is expected to succeed Hartenstein as Tribune CEO in the next few weeks. 
 
 Also expected to be named to the board are Peter Murphy, previously a longtime executive at Walt Disney Co.; Ross Levinsohn, former head of global media at Yahoo Inc.; and Craig A. Jacobson, a veteran entertainment attorney. 
 
 The board will be rounded out by Bruce Karsh, president of Oaktree Capital Management, the Los Angeles investment firm that owns about 23% of the new Tribune; and Kenneth Liang, an Oaktree managing director. 
 
 Tribune owns 23 local television stations, eight daily newspapers and Internet and other media properties. 
 
 Those holdings include KTLA-TV Channel 5, the Chicago Tribune, and national cable station WGN-TV. Tribune also holds slightly less than one-third of the Food Network cable channel and about a 25% stake in the CareerBuilder website. 
 
 Liguori is also a former Discovery Communications senior executive whose resume is in programming and marketing. He headed both the FX cable network and Fox Broadcasting at News Corp. At Discovery he served as chief operating officer of the cable programming giant. 
 
 Murphy spent almost two decades at Disney, rising to the position of chief strategist. He founded private investment firm Wentworth Capital Management. He has close ties to Angelo, Gordon & Co., an investment firm that will own roughly 9% of the new Tribune Co. 
 
 Levinsohn is a former head of global media at Yahoo. He also served briefly as its interim CEO before Google Inc.'s Marissa Mayer being tapped for that job. Levinsohn also is a former News Corp. executive who headed its interactive unit. 
 
 Jacobson, an attorney at Hansen, Jacobson, Teller, Hoberman, Newman, Warren, Richman, Rush & Kaller is one of Hollywood's more prominent deal-makers. His clients have included several high-profile executives and performers such as Ryan Seacrest. 
 
 Tribune remained profitable throughout the bankruptcy, building cash reserves of more than $2.5 billion as of Nov. 18, according to a U.S. Bankruptcy Court filing this month. Creditors are expected to immediately take nearly $3 billion in cash out of the new company, some of it coming from a new $1.1-billion loan that was approved as part of the bankruptcy. 
 
 The value of Tribune's newspaper properties has sunk to $623 million, a fraction of their value a few years earlier, according to an estimate filed in Bankruptcy Court in April. 
 
 A key question still to be answered is what Tribune will do with its newspapers. Some analysts believe the company will seek to sell the slower-growing newspapers to focus on TV holdings. 
 
 As for the Los Angeles Times, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. has expressed interest, according to people familiar with the matter. 
 
 Aaron Kushner, owner of the Orange County Register, and Doug Manchester, the San Diego real estate developer who last year bought the local Union Tribune newspaper, also have shown interest. 
 
 Austin Beutner, the former venture capitalist and former deputy mayor of Los Angeles, told The Times in October that he has reached out to civic-minded investors who would consider acquiring the paper. 
 
 walter.hamilton@latimes.com 
 
 joe.flint@latimes.com
– The Tribune Company is set to emerge from bankruptcy today, four years after it filed for Chapter 11 protection as the American economy nosedived. The reorganized multimedia company has a new board of directors that includes plenty of entertainment industry veterans, and profitable assets including eight major daily newspapers and 23 TV stations, reports Reuters. The company sold the Chicago Cubs in 2009. "Tribune will emerge as a dynamic multimedia company" that is "far stronger than it was when we began the Chapter 11 process," CEO Eddy Hartenstein wrote in an email to employees. But the value of the company's newspaper properties has shrunk to just $632 million and analysts believe it might sell off its papers to focus on its TV holdings, reports the Tribune-owned Los Angeles Times, which is rumored to be a target for Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.