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January 4, 2007
name='1'>Bankruptcy Judge Approves Adelphia Creditor
Plan
Bankruptcy Judge
Robert Gerber
size='3'>approved Adelphia Communications Corp.'s plan to pay creditors,
ending of one of the biggest bankruptcy cases in
size='3'>U.S.
size='3'>history, Bloomberg News reported yesterday.
size='3'> In July, Adelphia sold
substantially all its cable operations to Comcast Corp. and Time Warner
Inc. for $17.6 billion in cash and shares in Time Warner's cable unit.
Of that amount, $15 billion will be distributed to creditors in cash and
Time Warner Cable shares. After winding down, Adelphia will cease to do
business. 'The plan has secured the assent of over $10 billion in
claims, representing approximately 84 percent of the claims in this
case,'' Judge Gerber wrote in his 267- page decision filed
today.
href='http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aGVKHfFFnVM4&refer=news'>Read
more.
N.Y.
Wants Racing Association's DIP Funding Rejected
w:st='on'>New
York
$50 million financing package arranged by recently bankrupt New York
Racing Association Inc. because it says the racetrack operator
doesn’t control the land it’s using to guarantee the
loan, Bankruptcy
Law360 reported yesterday.
w:st='on'>
York, the NYRA’s
largest creditor, said bankruptcy law doesn’t take priority over
the state’s racing laws, which stipulate that the association must
receive approval from a state oversight board before putting the tracks
at risk to line up funding.
w:st='on'>
York
NYRA with DIP financing of its own, which it said would be sufficient to
fund the association through the end of the year on “substantially
the same terms and conditions” as those in its current DIP
request.
href='http://bankruptcy.law360.com/Secure/ViewArticle.aspx?id=15757'>Read
more.
size='3'>(Registration required.)
Autos
name='3'>Hedge Fund Claims Deal Would Strip $1 Billion in Value
from
size='3'>Delphi
Highland Capital
Management LP objected to Delphi’s investment deal proposed by
investors Appaloosa Management LP and Cerberus Capital Management LP,
claiming it would erase an estimated $1.29 billion of aggregate value
from
size='3'>Delphi
stockholders, Bankruptcy
Law360 reported yesterday. In mid-December,
Appaloosa and Cerberus filed a motion seeking approval for the equity
investment plan, which the pair proposed along with Harbinger Capital
Partners Master Fund I Ltd., Merrill Lynch & Co. and UBS Securities
LLC. Some of the creditors that would benefit the most,
size='3'>Highland
already have claims that will be paid in excess of 100 percent. A
hearing on the matter has been scheduled for Jan. 11.
href='http://bankruptcy.law360.com/Secure/ViewArticle.aspx?id=15739'>Read
more. (Registration required.)
name='4'>Auto Sales at Big 3 Fall Further
General Motors, Ford
Motors and the Chrysler Group reported that their collective market
share for December was 51.5 percent, their lowest monthly collective
market share ever for a month, and that they held only 53.7 percent over
the past year, the New
York Times reported today. Wednesday’s
sales report furthers analysts’ belief that competition among
auto manufacturers will be just as fierce next year, even though
gasoline prices are easing. At best, analysts and auto executives expect
industry sales to be flat with the 16.5 million sold in 2006, down from
16.9 million sold in 2005, according to Autodata. At worst, some
forecasters see sales falling as low as 16 million vehicles, which could
force the Detroit-based companies to speed up or expand their revamping
plans.
href='http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/04/business/04auto.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=business&pagewanted=print'>Read
more.
name='5'>Furniture Maker Requests Extension to File Chapter 11
Plan
Furniture maker Rowe Cos. has
asked a judge for an additional four months of control over its
bankruptcy case while it develops a plan to repay creditors, the
Associated Press reported yesterday. Once Rowe completes its
retail-store closings and asset auction, it will be in position to
'begin negotiating a plan of liquidation,' the company said in court
documents filed Dec. 29. Rowe is seeking a four-month extension that
would give it until May 16 to file its chapter 11 plan. The company is
also seeking an extension through July 16 to win creditors' support for
its plan.
href='http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/4441678.html'>Read
more.
Democrats to Seek Cuts of Student Loan Rates in Phases
Rep. Dale Kildee
(D-Mich.), the likely chairman of the House Education and the Workforce
Subcommittee, said that Democrats will offer a 'phased-in approach' to
paring downstudent loan interest rates for needy students - rather than
slashing the rate with a single cut - during the party's first 100 hours
in the majority of the 110th Congress, CongressDaily reported today.
Kildee said that the proposal will cut subsidized student loan rates in
half, from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent over five years, to meet a
'pay-as-you-go' budget rule, which House Democrats introduced Wednesday
as part of a massive package of rules for the session. Kildee said
details have not been finalized, but he noted that the interest rate cut
is already 'partially paid for' with savings left over from the current
fiscal year. Additional money could be put aside by cutting
administrative costs at the Department of Education, he
added.
Case
Presents Another Challenge to Sarbanes-Oxley Act
Even if the
110th
Congress doesn't bring the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to the
floor for consideration, a D.C.-based free market group's lawsuit
challenging its constitutionality could force Congress to reconsider the
law, the Legal Times reported today. Late last month, Judge
James Robertson of the U.S. District Court for the
w:st='on'>District of
Columbia
filed by the Free Enterprise Fund and Beckstead and Watts, a
size='3'>Nevada
firm that focuses its auditing business on small companies. Beckstead is
under investigation by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board
(PCAOB) for auditing deficiencies. The fund and Beckstead claim the
PCAOB lacks accountability and that the provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley
that established the board are unconstitutional because they violate the
constitutional requirement that key executive branch officials be
appointed by the president and infringe upon the president's
authority.
href='http://www.law.com/jsp/ihc/PubArticleIHC.jsp?id=1167818525026'>Read
more.
International
name='8'>KPMG Acquitted in
w:st='on'>
size='3'>Norway
size='3'>Bankruptcy Case
A partner with accounting firm
KPMG was sentenced to 30 days in jail for negligent accounting in one of
Norway's worst bankruptcies, while the Norwegian branch of the firm was
acquitted, the Associated Press reported today. Accountant John Haukland
was auditor for the books of the Finance Credit collection agency in the
years prior to its bankruptcy in 2003, with about 1.5 billion kroner
($242 million) in debt owed to eight banks. He has two weeks to decide
whether to appeal. In its 36-page ruling, the Oslo District Court said
Haukland and his team approved inaccurate annual accounts from Finance
Credit, and that as early as 2000 they should have seen that figures
were exaggerated in its books. The court found that KPMG itself could
not be held responsible for the negligence of Haukland and his team, and
rejected the prosecution's demand that KPMG be fined 13 million kroner
($2.1 million).
href='http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Norway-KPMG.html?pagewanted=print'>Read
more.
name='9'>Taiwan
face='Times New Roman' size='3'>'s BenQ Says Shutdown of German
Mobile-Phone Unit Will Not Influence Finances
w:st='on'>
size='3'>Taiwan's
BenQ Corp. said a shutdown of its German mobile-phone unit BenQ Mobile,
which filed for insolvency protection in September, would have no impact
on the Taiwanese company's finances, the Associated Press reported
today. 'We already discontinued investment in the unit and wrote off the
investment, so its bankruptcy will have no financial impact on the
company,' said Eric Yu, BenQ's chief financial
officer.
size='3'>In
face='Times New Roman'
size='3'>Munich
spokeswoman for BenQ Mobile's insolvency administrator said Tuesday he
would shut down BenQ Mobile's office and plant after no bidders came to
the unit's rescue by Dec. 31. BenQ Mobile applied for protection from
its creditors in September, a year after the Taiwanese company took it
over from Siemens AG and tried unsuccessfully to turn it around.
href='http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070104/taiwan_benq.html?.v=1'>Read
more.
name='10'>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.
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your email.
size='3'>Eddie Bauer Holdings Inc.'s board
decided to put the
face='Times New Roman' size='3'>Redmond
size='3'>,
size='3'>. retailer up for sale as a result of its burdensome debt and
continued struggles to revive sales. Facing drops in same-store
sales for twenty-three of the past twenty-seven quarters, the retailer
determined that if it couldn't find a buyer it would be forced to either
renegotiate or refinance its debt. Further, the company could have
faced difficulties in renewing store leases and signing new ones.
As a result, Eddie Bauer is being acquired by Sun Capital Partners Inc.
of
size='3'>Boca Raton, Fl.
and Golden Gate Capital of San Francisco, Ca. for $286 million.
The buyers, through an entity called Eddie B Holding Corp., will also
assume $328 million in debt.
size='3'>John Knox Village, a
size='3'>Kansas City
w:st='on'>
size='3'>Mo. nonprofit
retirement community, made employment buyout offers to nearly three
dozen of its employees and managers in an effort to trim its payroll and
balance its budget for 2008. For fiscal 2006, the company reported
revenue of just under $60 million, but that's expected to increase to
about $65 million this year.
size='3'>Lennar Corp., the Florida-based
homebuilder, said that it will incur a fourth quarter loss of up to
$1.28 a share, following a pretax charge in the quarter of as much as
$500 million related to inventory valuation adjustments and writeoffs.
Lennar is suffering from softness in the housing market. In a separate
announcement, Lennar said it will sell a 62% interest in its LandSource
Communities Development partnership with LNR Property Corp. to MW
Housing Partners. Lennar and LNR will each receive about $660 million in
the transaction.
size='3'>Mills Corp., the Chevy Chase,
size='3'>Md.
developer, received approval from its lenders and its administrative
agent, Goldman Sachs, for an arrangement whereby the maturity date of a
senior term loan was extended from 12/31 until 3/31. That
agreement depends on Mills filing its 2005 financial restatement by the
end of the month and its fiscal reports for 2006 being filed by March.
The company will also continue to be traded on the New York Stock
Exchange through March, subject to a reassessment of its status.
Mills has been considering selling all or part of its operations,
following revelations of accounting problems that led to a Securities
and Exchange Commission investigation.
size='3'>Washington Mutual Inc., Seattle, Wa.,
is laying off 300 employees at its operations in
w:st='on'>
size='3'>Milwaukee
part of the banking company's overall restructuring.