A bankruptcy court judge on Friday approved Lyondell Chemical's plan to exit bankruptcy, signaling the near-end of a 15-month process during which the chemical maker fended off a takeover and settled hundreds of environmental claims and a creditor lawsuit.

Judge Robert Gerber gave his assent to a plan in which Apollo Management, Ares Management and Access Industries will provide financing.

Lyondell filed for bankruptcy in January of 2009 under the weight of about $24 billion in debt. When asked by Lyondell before a packed courtroom after a day-long proceeding if he would approve the plan, Gerber said "yes" and then joked that he felt a bit like he was taking part in a marriage.

Lyondell presented the creditor-backed plan last month when it rejected a takeover bid from India's Reliance Industries, which valued the company at $14.5 billion, saying it was not high enough. Court documents show the company's investment bankers value Lyondell at $14.2 billion to $16.2 billion.

Under its stand-alone plan, the details of which were released in March, Lyondell plans to emerge from bankruptcy as Netherlands-based LyondellBasell, with $7.2 billion in debt and $2 billion in cash. The chemical company also will shed most environmental liabilities, many of which it settled in a $250 million agreement with the U.S. government and state governments.

Judge Gerber of Manhattan Federal bankruptcy court earlier on Friday approved that settlement.

After emerging from bankruptcy, which the company expects to do by April 30, the company will be partly owned by private equity firms Apollo and Ares as well as Access, an industrial holding company owned by investor Len Blavatnik, who will together back a $2.8 billion rights offering. In the rights offering, Apollo can invest up to $1.52 billion, Ares can invest up to $475.7 million and Access can invest up to $805.9 million.

Shares of the new company are expected to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange during the third quarter, its attorney George Davis of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft said during the hearing. Blavatnik created the original LyondellBasell in 2007 through a leveraged buyout of Lyondell, a largely U.S.-based company. He then combined the company with his Dutch chemicals company Basell AF SCA.

In March, Lyondell reached a $450 million settlement to resolve litigation over that buyout with creditors, who said that the $22 billion buyout had been designed to fail.