Jan. 1--YRC Worldwide Inc. and its employees finally have reason to cheer this New Year's holiday, although the trucking giant still faces challenges.

After multiple deadline extensions, the company wrapped up its much-delayed financial restructuring Thursday and averted a likely bankruptcy. It still faces its seasonally slow winter and unresolved debt payments a few months away.

The Overland Park-based firm said it received the last approval it needed for the restructuring deal that essentially gives ownership of the company to investors who hold much of its bond debt.

The deal wipes out about $470 million the company owes the bondholders and gives them 94 percent ownership in the form of new stock.

Current stockholders' stake in the company will be reduced to a minor fraction.

On news of the deal Thursday, prices of YRC's existing shares tumbled 15 cents, or 15 percent, to 84 cents. Since mid-2005, the company's problems have whittled more than 97 percent of its stock's value from about $60 a share.

YRC, one of the nation's biggest truckers, has been hit hard by the weak economy and has struggled to pay debt it took on to expand and buy other trucking companies, including Roadway Express. YRC has about 2,000 area employees.

In an effort to cut costs, YRC has been laying off workers, selling property and consolidating operations. It combined its two biggest carriers, Yellow Transportation and Roadway, into one operation and closed hundreds of terminals.

In addition, the company's more than 30,000 union employees approved a 15 percent reduction in wages and allowed the company to suspend hundreds of millions of dollars in payments into union pension plans. YRC's nonunion work force saw pay reduced by 10 percent and endured furloughs and benefit cuts.

Thursday's deal also improves the company's cash situation.

YRC now will be able to defer a $19 million interest payment that had been due Thursday. In addition, the debt swap gives YRC access to nearly $160 million under an agreement with other lenders.

CEO Bill Zollars hailed the elimination of one-third of the company's debt and promised a better future.

YRC now operates a much smaller trucking network and should be able to survive the slow winter months of January and February, he said.

"We should see a seasonal pickup in March, but we're not counting on the general economy coming back in the first half of the year," he said.