LA Times Ownership Offers $3 Million Loan to Faltering OC Register

Tribune Publishing, owner of the Los Angeles Times, offered today to loan the Orange County Register’s parent company $3 million interest-free to help the company navigate a second round of bankruptcy proceedings, the Register reported.

A court document filed a day prior in U.S. Bankruptcy Court by Freedom Communications declared it has $1,043,733 “in cash on hand with which to operate their business and fund these Chapter 11 cases.”

In Tuesday’s filing, Freedom had outlined a plan for a $3 million loan from Silver Point Capital, which is due $19.46 million from Freedom, to “pay employee wages and benefits, procure goods and services integral to the debtors’ ongoing business operations, fund certain operational expenses ... maintain ordinary course relationships with vendors, suppliers and customers, and satisfy working capital needs in the ordinary course.”

The Times’ offer includes a requested pledge that Tribune would be first in line to get its bills paid in the bankruptcy resolution, and that the $3 million could count toward any bid the publisher makes to buy Freedom’s assets, the Register reported.

GlassRatner, the company hired by Freedom to prepare a financial plan, forecast that the owner of the Register and the Press-Enterprise in Riverside would need $3 million to get through the next 26 weeks.

City News Service; Wikimedia Commons