I did not have time to go through the footnotes but as of 12/31/16 Tronc reported 350 million of long term debt and 161 of other long-term liabilities. My guess is that most of the latter are pension fund liabilities.
Believe it or not, pension fund liabilities for current and former newspaper employees don't apply to tronc. Tribune Co. eliminated its traditional pension plan in the late '80s in favor of a 401k and an employee stock ownership plan. Anyone who hired on with Trib before then was eligible for a pension. When the company split, pension fund liabilities for newspaper employees remained with Tribune Media instead of tronc as part of the deal. When I decide to take my pension -- it'll be tiny because I joined the company only a year or so before the pension plan went away -- it will come from Tribune Media/Sinclair.
Thus, tronc pays no pensions that I'm aware of -- although it's had to pay for buyouts, severance for layoffs and settlements with executives it's cut loose.
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