Tribune Company to Drop ESOP

The ill-fated ESOP at the Tribune Company will be terminated and replaced with a new 401(k) plan with a 4% match for employee contributions of up to 6% of pay. The company also said it will institute a profit-sharing plan. While there had been discussion of keeping the ESOP through bankruptcy reorganization in the hopes of providing some value for employees, the complexity of doing that did not seem worth the effort. The ESOP is, however, still under investigation by the Department of Labor.