src='/AM/Images/headlines/headline.gif' />
October 6, 2005
name='1'>Trustee Program
Announces Enforcement Guidelines for Natural Disaster Debtors
The U.S. Trustee
Program
yesterday announced that it has
href='http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=54604'>issued
bankruptcy enforcement guidelines that take into account the
hardships experienced
by victims of recent hurricanes in the Gulf Coast region, U.S.
Newswire reported
yesterday. Exceptions under BAPCPA will be made for natural disaster
debtors
in the areas of document requirements, means tests, creditors’
meetings,
venues and small business chapter 11s. Cliff White, the acting
director of the
Executive Office for U.S. Trustees, held a conference call/press
backgrounder
on the just-issued bankruptcy guidelines yesterday.
id='2'>U.S.
Senate to Vote on Airline Pension Aid
U.S. senators
reached an
agreement on airline pension legislation that would extend assistance
to two
more carriers, American Airlines and Continental Airlines Inc., Sen.
Charles
Grassley (R-Iowa) said, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The bill
would give
Delta Airlines Inc. and Northwest Airlines Corp. 14 years to make
pension payments
otherwise due in a few years. The "leniency" would be
extended to
Continental and AMR Corp.’s American under the bill. Legislation
intended
to reform the U.S. pension system, which has cleared two Senate
committees,
has been stalled in part because Continental and American objected to
the Delta-Northwest
assistance or wanted similar help. A vote by the full Senate may
happen this
week.
href='http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/local/sfl-zpensions06oct06,0,42383…'>Read
more.
id='3'>Delphi:
Bankrutcy Looms, Shares Drop
Delphi Corp. is
href='http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051005/bs_nm/autos_delphi_dc_1%20'>prepared
to file for bankruptcy as early as this week as it lines up
lawyers and
consultants, the New York Times reported yesterday. The latest
move came
Monday when Delphi appointed David Sherbin as general counsel. Sherbin
had worked
with Delphi CEO Robert Miller in the same capacity at Federal Mogul,
which had
filed for bankruptcy. Whether Miller goes through with a bankruptcy
filing for
Delphi remains to be seen, the paper said. Miller has said he will
file by Oct.
17 at the latest, when U.S. bankruptcy laws change, unless former
parent company
General Motors Corp. and the United Automobile Workers union agree to
a multibillion-dollar
bailout. There is also the issue of pension costs. Delphi has
previously reported
its pension obligations on behalf of workers exceed its plan assets by
$4 billion,
but a calculation by the U.S. Pension Benefit Guaranty
Corp.—obtained
by the New York Times—suggests Delphi’s shortfall
would be
closer to $10.9 billion if the plan were terminated today. In other
news,
href='http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0510/06/C01-339404.htm'>Delphi
shares fell sharply yesterday due to the company’s possible
bankruptcy,
the Detroit Auto Insider reported yesterday. In heavy trading,
shares
dropped 10 percent to $2.50, near their all-time low, but Wall Street
analysts
remain divided about the prospects of a Delphi filing.
id='4'>Parmalat
Shares Rise on Market Return
Parmalat shares
returned
to the market today two years after the Italian food group’s
collapse,
with suitors lining up and traders betting on a windfall from
multi-billion-euro
lawsuits, Reuters reported today. At 10:22 a.m. GMT, the shares traded
at 3.131
euros on the Milan stock exchange—more than three times their
nominal
value, but just below the 3.15 euro reference price set by the bourse
on the
basis of pre-market levels. At current levels, Parmalat has a market
value of
5 billion euros, almost three times its capitalization before the
crisis broke
in December 2003.
href='http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticleSearch.aspx?storyID=139350%2B0…'>Read
more.
id='5'>Church
Clears Up Bankruptcy Confusion
Monday is the
deadline for
many people to decide if they want to opt out of the priest sex abuse
case settlement
pending against the Catholic Church’s Portland, Ore., chapter,
known as
the archdiocese, KATU News reported yesterday. Church officials
recently mailed
more than 80,000 letters out to Catholic households across Western
Oregon detailing
their options in the proposed settlement. Creditors want the
archdiocese to
sell assets like local church buildings, parish schools and other
properties
to settle the claims, but 124 parishes and some 390,000 Catholics
claim that
those properties belong to the parishioners, not the archdiocese. In
the letter
sent out by the archdiocese, parishioners are told that if they opt
out of the
lawsuit, they can then be sued individually by the church’s
creditors,
since the church has said that the parishioners own the buildings.
Church officials
stressed that if someone does decide to opt out of the settlement and
is named
in a subsequent lawsuit, parishioners cannot be held financially
liable for
any judgements against the church.
href='http://www.katu.com/news/story.asp?id=80084'>Read
the full story.
Airlines
id='6'>NWA
Wants to Trim 115 Planes
A judge could
decide Friday
whether Northwest may cut 13 planes right away and let the
nation’s fourth-largest
airline decide the fate of another 102 planes after negotiating new
terms with
its lenders, the Detroit Free Press reported today. A Northwest
spokesman
declined to say how many planes the airline really wants to keep if it
could
pay less for them and reduce its monumental aircraft payments and fuel
bills.
That’s something a group of creditors wants to know. They say
that the
airline shouldn’t be asking to dump planes until it develops a
more complete
plan for fixing its financial woes to emerge from bankruptcy. By
eliminating
these planes, Northwest wants bring its fleet size and mix of planes
in line
with what it can afford and the number of travelers it is expecting to
serve,
Northwest said in its request to abandon the planes. Northwest leases
263 planes
and owns another 350 planes, according to its Web site, not counting
planes
in storage.
href='http://www.freep.com/money/business/nwa6e_20051006.htm'>Read
the full story.
id='7'>US
Airways Traffic Declines
US Airways said
that September
traffic declined 4 percent to 2.87 billion revenue passenger miles on
a 6.6
percent decrease in capacity to 3.95 billion available seat miles, the
Philadelphia
Business Journal reported yesterday. The airline also said
yesterday that
href='http://louisville.bizjournals.com/industries/travel/airlines_airports/2…'>revenue
passenger miles were up 0.1 percent for America West in September
compared
to September 2004 and down 4 percent for the old US Airways, the
Louisville
Business Journal reported today. The new company said that US
Airways mainline
flights had 2.9 billion revenue passenger miles in September and
America West
had 1.9 billion. As for capacity, US Airways had 4 billion available
seat miles
in September—down 6.6 percent —and America West had 2.5
billion,
for an increase of 1.4 percent compared to September 2004.
id='8'>Delta
to Reduce Flights
Delta Air Lines
Inc. said
today that it is reducing its domestic flight schedule, the
Montgomery Advertiser
reported. The Atlanta-based carrier isn't experiencing a shortage
of jet
fuel, but is conserving energy, it said. Delta spokeswoman Chris Kelly
said
that it's impossible to say exactly how many flights will be reduced
because
it will depend on travel each day. The reductions will be minimal,
though, affecting
early morning and late-night flights that have low bookings, Kelly
said. Delta
will notify affected passengers a few days in advance and will try to
offer
them choices about rescheduling flights, Kelly said. The company has
no end
date for the flight reductions.
href='http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051005…'>Read
the full story.
id='9'>Buehler
Foods Will Close Six Winn-Dixie stores
Buehler Foods will
close
six more of its Louisville, Ky.-area groceries as it works its way
through a
bankruptcy brought on by its ill-fated purchase last year of 16 former
Winn-Dixie
stores, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported yesterday. The
closings
will leave four of the stores bought by the Indiana chain when
Winn-Dixie withdrew
from Kentucky and other markets last year. Winn-Dixie itself later
went bankrupt.
The four remaining stores "are a viable part of the business and
we wouldn’t
deem it necessary to close them," said Karla Neukam, advertising
and marketing
director for Buehler Foods. Buehler Foods filed chapter 11 in May, six
months
after cleaning and re-opening the Winn-Dixie locations. It listed
assets of
$10 million to $50 million and debts of $50 million to $100 million.
Liquidation
sales will start tomorrow, Neukam said, and it probably will take
about a month
to sell off stock.