Struggling Ampal-American Israel Corp. filed a bankruptcy-exit plan that gives frustrated bondholders an ownership stake in the reorganized foreign energy and transportation investment company but also protects the shares held by Chief Executive Yosef Maiman, Dow Jones DBR Small Cap reported today. Ampal-American's plan proposes to split 20 percent of the company's Class A stock and 184,651 shares of "voting preference common stock" among bondholders owed about $233 million and other unsecured creditors. At a hearing Thursday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, Judge Stuart Bernstein gave the company's committee of unsecured creditors 10 days to file a competing plan. Both plans will be discussed at a Dec. 20 hearing. In earlier court papers, bondholders had argued that the court should either appoint a chapter 11 trustee or end the company's exclusive right to file a bankruptcy-exit plan so that they could propose their own.
