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June 19, 2007
name='1'>Supreme Court Backs Banks in Antitrust Suit on
IPOs
The U.S. Supreme Court
yesterday blocked an antitrust lawsuit against leading investment banks,
a blow to investors who questioned the tactics of Wall Street firms
during the tech bubble, the
size='3'>Washington Post reported
today. The class-action suit accused the
firms of illegally rigging the initial public stock offerings of
hundreds of technology companies. The New York-based U.S. Court of
Appeals for the 2nd Circuit had ruled that the suit could proceed.
However, the Supreme Court in a 7 to 1 vote agreed with the securities
industry, which argued that federal securities law preempted the suit.
The essential issue, Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote for the majority,
was whether allowing an antitrust suit over the alleged practices would
prove 'practically incompatible' with the smooth enforcement of
securities law by the Securities and Exchange Commission. In answering
that question in the affirmative, Breyer emphasized the confusion that
would result from subjecting IPO underwriters to both antitrust and
securities laws that would 'threaten serious harm to the efficient
functioning of the securities markets.'
href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/18/AR2007061800428_pf.html'>Read
more.
name='2'>Some
w:st='on'>
size='3'>Lenders
face='Times New Roman' size='3'>Are
size='3'>Setting
face='Times New Roman' size='3'>Rates
size='3'>College
College
New York Attorney General
Andrew M. Cuomo said yesterday in a letter to Congress that his
investigation of the student loan business had found “a
significant number of lenders” that determine eligibility for
private loans and set interest rates based in large part on the colleges
the students attend rather than the borrowers’ credit-worthiness,
the New York
Times reported today. “Just as lenders
in the mortgage industry once made judgments about credit lending in
entire neighborhoods as a whole,” Mr. Cuomo wrote, referring to a
practice known as redlining, “so too are lenders making
generalized judgments about student and parent risk based on a
student’s school neighborhood.” He did not name any lenders
that engaged in these practices. Students at colleges with default rates
of 3 percent or less, the letter said, were eligible for private loan
interest rates of 8 percent to 9.25 percent. At schools with default
rates of 3 percent to 5 percent, students could obtain loans at interest
rates of 9 percent to 12 percent. At colleges with default rates of 5
percent to 10 percent, students paid interest rates of 11 percent to 14
percent.
href='http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/us/19loans.html?pagewanted=print'>Read
more.
name='3'>Creditors Request Forensic Accountant in
w:st='on'>
size='3'>Davenport
Bankruptcy
The creditors' committee
of the bankrupt
size='3'>Davenport
w:st='on'>
size='3'>Iowa
Judge Lee
Jackwig for permission to hire a forensic
accountant to closely examine 48,000 diocesan financial documents,
the
size='3'>Des Moines
size='3'>(
face='Times New Roman' size='3'>Iowa
size='3'>) Register reported today. The
accountant would be looking for real estate transfers, gifts and money
transfers between church entities and the audit would be paid out of the
bankruptcy estate. That may lead to creditors challenging the ownership
of parishes or parish liability regarding claims against the diocese,
according to
face='Times New Roman' size='3'>Iowa
size='3'>State
face='Times New Roman'
size='3'>University
size='3'>law professor Pat Bauer. The Davenport Diocese, like the four
other U.S. Roman Catholic dioceses that have filed for bankruptcy,
maintains the parishes are separate legal entities.
href='http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070619/LIFE05/706190385/-1/ENT05'>Read
more.
Autos
name='4'>Auto Makers Oppose Federal-Mogul Plan
Ford Motor,
DaimlerChrysler and Volkswagen of America have raised objections to the
part of Federal-Mogul Corp.’s amended reorganization plan that
covers Abex Friction Products, a brake-pads business formerly owned by
manufacturer Cooper Industries Inc.,
size='3'>Bankruptcy Law360 reported yesterday.
Cooper's plan to filter money into Federal-Mogul’s trust it would
absolve it of all asbestos litigation, according to the company.
However, the auto makers see such a solution as unfairly putting the
responsibility of compensation back on them. The primary difference
between the current plan and the old one involves pneumo asbestos
claims, which are, according to the plan, asbestos personal injury
claims caused by exposure to asbestos-containing products like the
friction products manufactured by Abex.
href='http://bankruptcy.law360.com/Secure/ViewArticle.aspx?id=27094'>Read
more. (Registration required.)
w:st='on'>
name='5'>Toyota
size='3'> Requests Answers from Dura on
Leases
Toyota requested a
bankruptcy court on Friday to allow it to either appoint a specific time
by which Dura Automotive Systems must decide on how to handle the leases
or provide it with relief from the automatic stay to pursue its
claims, Bankruptcy
Law360 reported yesterday. Before Dura entered
chapter 11, Dura and
size='3'>Toyota reached certain
agreements, under which
w:st='on'>
size='3'>Toyota
equipment, mainly forklifts, to the supplier, court documents states.
According to the terms of the leases, the forklifts were to be returned
to
size='3'>Toyota at maturity
and Dura was to provide insurance coverage on all of the equipment in
the meantime.
face='Times New Roman' size='3'>Toyota
maintains that it needs to know what Dura intends to do
with the leases since the company runs the risk of losing the value of
the equipment. A hearing has been scheduled for July 24 in the U.S.
Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, with objections due by
July 17.
href='http://bankruptcy.law360.com/Secure/ViewArticle.aspx?id=27111'>Read
more. (Registration required.)
face='Times New Roman' size='3'>
name='6'>Delphi
size='3'> Seeks Extension to File Plan
Bankrupt auto part
supplier Delphi Corp. requested to have until the end of the year to
file its reorganization plan and until Feb. 29, 2008 to solicit creditor
approval of it,
size='3'>Bankruptcy Law360 reported yesterday.
The current exclusivity period is set to expire on July 31.
size='3'>Delphi
chance that it will file its plan before then, but after speaking with
the committees and General Motors, it believed it was prudent to ask for
more time. A hearing on the extension request is scheduled for June 26
and objections must be filed by June 22.
href='http://bankruptcy.law360.com/secure/ViewArticle.aspx?Id=27194'>Read
more. (Registration required.)
name='7'>Commentary: Amid Auto Industry's Pain, UAW Chief Seeks
Smaller Concessions
Ron Gettelfinger, the
head of the United Auto Workers union (UAW), is trying to avoid becoming
the union leader who ends seven decades of nearly unbroken advances in
workers' wages and benefits, the
size='3'>Wall Street Journal reported today.
He is under unprecedented pressure to give back as much as $10 billion a
year to help
size='3'>U.S. car companies
stop losing to their lower-cost Asian counterparts -- or see the
size='3'>U.S.
size='3'>companies build more and more of their cars overseas. Former
UAW president Doug Fraser calls this 'the most difficult time in the
history of our union.' As union leaders meet with General Motors Corp.
executives today in preparation for a summer of contract talks,
the
face='Times New Roman'
size='3'>U.S.
companies have aggressive expectations. They want to go far toward
eliminating a $30-per-hour gap in compensation they see between their
workers and those of foreign-based rivals. And they want workers braced
for a deal full of fundamental changes, including increasing what they
pay for health care costs and sharply reducing the time they can be paid
after their jobs are eliminated.
href='http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118221799494039963.html?mod=hpp_us_pageone'>Read
more. (Registration required.)
name='8'>Ex-Thaxton Broker Pleads Guilty to Fraud
A former Thaxton Group
broker pled guilty to securities fraud, admitting that he played a role
in the massive fraud that helped drive the high-risk lender into
bankruptcy, Bankruptcy
Law360 reported yesterday. James Garrett Jr.
was ordered on Friday to spend the next eight years in prison, shortly
after admitting to eight counts of securities fraud, South Carolina
Attorney General Henry McMaster said. South Carolina Circuit Judge
Daniel Pieper sentenced Garrett with five years probation connected to
each of the counts and ordered him to pay more than $75,000 in
restitution for his alleged misdeeds, according to McMaster. Thaxton
entered chapter 11 protection in 2003, when the high-risk lender
collapsed in a $242 million meltdown amid charges that Thaxton and
Finova Capital Corp.
committed securities fraud. Thaxton, which sold junk bonds to Finova,
owes the company $110 million.
href='http://bankruptcy.law360.com/Secure/ViewArticle.aspx?id=27085'>Read
more. (Registration required.)
name='9'>Commentary: Mortgages Give Wall Street New
Worries
After the first cracks in
the subprime mortgage business appeared late last year, several large
lenders were forced into bankruptcy and now the stress is sending
tremors down Wall Street, as investment funds that bought a stake in
those loans are starting to wobble, the
size='3'>New York Times reported today.
Industry officials say they expect this second act to be longer and
slower, unwinding over the next 12 to 18 months. It could force banks,
hedge funds and pension funds to acknowledge substantial losses, which
had been tucked away in complex investment vehicles that are hard to
evaluate. In turn, that could limit the money available for mortgage
lending. Yesterday, two hedge funds operated by a division of Bear
Stearns fought for their survival as three lenders — Merrill
Lynch, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase — asked Bear Stearns to put up
more capital. The funds appeared to have won a reprieve after executives
at Bear Stearns Asset Management told creditors that they had lined up
$500 million in new capital from a consortium led by Citigroup and
Barclays, the British bank. Last week, the fund sold about $3.6 billion
in high-grade securities backed by subprime mortgages.
href='http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/business/19mortgage.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=business&pagewanted=print'>Read
more.
name='10'>Enron Broadband CEO Gets 27-Month Prison
Term
The former chief of Enron
Corp.’s high-speed Internet unit, who turned government witness
and testified in the trial of former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling and
company founder Kenneth Lay, was sentenced Monday to 27 months in
prison, the Associated Press reported yesterday. It’s been nearly
three years since Kenneth Rice, 48, pleaded guilty to securities fraud
and agreed to help federal prosecutors on other cases related to the
energy giant’s collapse. His sentencing was postponed as he
cooperated with prosecutors. Rice had faced up to 10 years in prison and
a fine of up to $1 million. The plea agreement with prosecutors also
required him to forfeit $13.7 million in cash and property that included
jewelry and a pair of exotic sports cars.
href='http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-enron.html?pagewanted=print'>Read
more.
name='11'>Ronco Seeks Court Approval for Loan Deal
Ronco Corp. is seeking
bankruptcy court approval to enter into a loan with Laurus Master Fund
Ltd. so that it can stay afloat during its chapter 11 case, the
Associated Press reported yesterday. The company said the loan would
reduce its prepetition secured debt by $1.6 million and provide it with
$500,000 in cash. Ronco owes Laurus $4.6 million under a prepetition
revolving loan. Simi Valley, Calif.-based Ronco filed for chapter 11
protection on Thursday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in
size='3'>Woodland Hills
size='3'>Calif.
$13.9 million in assets and $32.7 million in debt.
href='http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/06/18/ap3832599.html'>Read
more.
International
name='12'>Parmalat's Bondholder Pact Is Upheld
A Milan judge upheld a
plea-bargain request by Italian asset manager Nextra in one of the
proceedings over alleged market rigging stemming from Parmalat SpA's
collapse in 2003, helping bondholders to start recouping some of their
losses, the Wall Street
Journal reported today. The Italian dairy
company also announced three out-of-court settlements with banks for
€72 million ($96.3 million), closing some of the lawsuits linked
to its insolvency under massive debt. Under the plea-bargain agreement,
Nextra, which is soon to be part of Intesa Sanpaolo SpA, will reimburse
bondholders 1 percent of the nominal value of the bonds issued, before
they lost value. The judge also imposed on Nextra an administrative
sanction of €500,000 and the seizure of an additional €1
million.
href='http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118218106715239140.html?mod=us_business_whats_news'>Read
more. (Registration required.)
name='13'>TROUBLED COMPANIES IN THE NEWS
1000’s of companies lose
money or experience some form of difficulty each
quarter.
The business news
articles below are taken from the
size='3'>Daily Summary of Troubled & Fast Growing U.S. Companies and
Other Business News published by Bastien
Financial Publications.
To begin receiving the COMPLETE
Daily e-Summary, that emails you information on over 70 such companies
each morning, email
face='Times New Roman' color='#0000ff'
size='3'>steve@creditnews.com
size='3'>your name, company name, address, phone and fax.
We’ll set you up within 24 hours.
The
size='3'>ABI
is only $99 for an annual subscription.
size='3'>Indicate “
face='Times New Roman' size='3'>ABI
size='3'>CODE 27” in your email.
size='3'>Alliance One International Inc.,
a
size='3'>Danville,
w:st='on'>
size='3'>N.C.
merchant, reported a fourth quarter net loss of $6.2 million, including
$5.5 million in extra charges. Revenue sank more than 25%–to
$433 million. For the year, it lost $21.6 million on a 6% revenue
decline–to just under $2 billion. The year included extra charges
of $33.6 million.
size='3'>Build-A-Bear Workshop Inc.’s
stock price sank nearly 23% after the
w:st='on'>
Louis
w:st='on'>
size='3'>Mo.
specialty teddy-bear stores reduced its profit projection for the second
quarter, citing a sharp drop in sales at its existing
stores.
size='3'>Cherokee Inc.,a Van Nuys, Ca. apparel
licensing firm, reported its first quarter net income declined
15%–to $5 million. Revenue declined 9%–to $12
million.
size='3'>Comarco Inc., a
w:st='on'>
Forest, Ca. provider of
wireless network-monitoring products, reported a first quarter net loss
of $1.6 million. Revenue tumbled 49%–to $5.4
million.
size='3'>Cost Plus Inc., an
w:st='on'>
size='3'>Oakland
retailer of home and entertainment products, reported a first quarter
net loss of $11.1 million. Sales fell 2%–to $208
million.
Humana Inc. agreed to stop marketing certain senior
plans amid charges that it engaged in misleading and aggressive sales
practices. Other companies agreeing to similar suspensions include
WellCare Health Plans Inc., Coventry Health Care Inc. and UnitedHealth
Group Inc.