A federal judge yesterday cleared several potential obstacles to McClatchy Co.’s effort to quickly exit bankruptcy, and a lawyer for the company’s least-protected creditors pulled back from a threat to seek a court-ordered search of records from the proposed new owner of the local news company, McClatchyDC.com reported. Judge Michael E. Wiles, who sits on the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, approved motions by McClatchy’s lawyers to pay the company’s current employees, service providers and suppliers, and to pay utility companies to keep the lights on at properties nationwide. With those milestones out of the way, the focus turns to mediation proceedings, which began Friday. Mediation is designed to narrow differences between McClatchy and its creditors. A proposed deal between McClatchy and Chatham Asset Management would allow the nation’s second-largest local news company to shed about 55 percent of its debt and become a new privately held company.
