Report: 2015 Public Company Bankruptcies Jump on Oil & Gas and Mining Industry Distress

Public company bankruptcies jumped 46 percent -- from 54 in 2014 to 79 in 2015 -- primarily driven by surging energy sector filings, according to a report released today by BankruptcyData.com. The 2015 crop of publicly traded filings includes six companies with assets above $3 billion compared to only two the previous year, according to the report. Similarly, there were 19 bankruptcies with assets of over $1 billion in 2015 versus 11 a year ago. Eight of the 10 largest chapter 11s were initiated by companies in the oil and gas, mining and related sectors -- and 51 percent of 2015's total public company bankruptcies came from those industries.

Click here to register for a free copy of BankruptcyData.com's report.

Will energy and production hit bottom in 2016? Be sure to attend ABI's Annual Spring Meeting in Washington, D.C., from April 14-17, as a panel of experts will be addressing this topic. Register here.

For further insight into struggling oil and gas companies and bankruptcy, be sure to pick up a copy of ABI's When Gushers Go Dry: The Essentials of Oil & Gas Bankruptcy.

Commentary: Bankruptcy Is Wrong for Puerto Rico

Lawmakers should not authorize Puerto Rico to allow its municipalities to declare bankruptcy, as it would bail out Puerto Rican politicians who have run the Commonwealth into financial ruin, according to a commentary yesterday in Forbes. Looking at Puerto Rico's balance sheet will show that American taxpayers and banks who loaned money to the Commonwealth should not have to pay for the mistakes of politicians who followed policies that failed, according to the commentary. The island of three million inhabitants has racked up over $70 billion in debt, and over half the population works for the government. Economic policies have kept wages artificially high, and corporate interests have been driven out of the island to find locations with friendlier government policies. According to new data shared by Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla's administration this past Monday, the commonwealth won't be able to make $23.9 billion in debt payments throughout the next decade.

Join experts in San Juan to discuss Puerto Rico's economic distress and other important cross-border insolvency topics at ABI's Caribbean Insolvency Symposium, Feb. 4-6, 2016. Click here to register!

For more news and analysis of Puerto Rico's debt crisis, be sure to visit ABI's "Puerto Rico in Distress" webpage.

Dry-Bulk Shipping Firms Face Unprecedented Crisis

Falling demand from China is wreaking havoc among the world's biggest shipping companies, forcing some to offload vessels at a discount to survive one of the industry's deepest crises, the Wall Street Journal reported today. "Things have just stopped in China," said George Logothetis, chairman and chief executive of the Libra Group, an international shipping firm. The shipping industry's pain has been worse for dry-bulk shipping companies -- whose vessels carry much of the raw materials of global trade, from grain to iron ore. The Baltic Dry Bulk Index, sometimes viewed as a proxy for global trade, peaked out just before the 2008 financial crisis at 11,000 points. On Wednesday, it closed at 358. The index has hit fresh record lows every day since the beginning of the year. That is forcing some shipping companies to offload vessels at bargain-basement prices. "We've never seen anything like this," said Emanuele Lauro, chief executive of New York-listed shipping major Scorpio Bulkers Inc. "We never thought we would find ourselves in this situation when we were buying ships in 2013 and 2014 at historically low levels. But, in the past few months, the priority has been to create a liquidity runway [by selling ships] and keep zero value off the table.

Commentary: Deregulating Corporate America

When it comes to regulating -- more precisely, deregulating -- corporate America, Republicans and Democrats are all too eager to find common ground, according to an editorial in Tuesday's New York Times. A bipartisan group of senators -- four Republicans, three Democrats and one independent -- is expected to introduce legislation soon that would slow and complicate the already laborious process by which federal regulations are issued and enforced. The winners, according to the editorial, would be big banks and big businesses, and the losers would be ordinary Americans who would be deprived of timely and effective protection from such agencies as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and other bank regulators, as well as from agencies that oversee consumer product safety, nuclear safety, investor safeguards, workplace rights and a host of other issues and activities. These agencies are supposed to work independently, with Congress providing oversight. Under the legislation, however, the editorial says that Congress would actively interfere in the rule-making process.

For more on the CFPB and why it is considered the most powerful regulator in consumer finance, be sure to watch this video featuring ABI Executive Director Sam Gerdano speaking with Alane Becket of Becket and Lee and Joann Needleman of Clark Hill PLC, who both contributed to the December 2015 ABI Journal article, "What Is the CFPB, and Why Should You Care? The Bureau's Reach Extends Beyond Consumer Advocacy."

Analysis: Rethinking Private Equity's "Golden Age"

KKR & Co.'s Henry Kravis labeled the era between 2005-07 as private equity's golden age, when buyout firms paid fat prices to buy about 20 supersized companies, from Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. to Hertz Global Holdings Inc. Examining the mega-deals a decade later, an analysis by Bloomberg and asset manager Hamilton Lane Advisors today found that they produced mostly mediocre returns, falling well short of the profits that leveraged buyout shops typically seek. "The big deals were done more out of ego than economic sense," said David Fann, chief executive officer of TorreyCove Capital Partners, which advises pension plans that invest in buyout funds. "People paid steep prices and put on too much debt."

Don't Miss the Insights and Analysis of Important Case Decisions with Rochelle's Daily Wire

ABI Editor-at-Large Bill Rochelle provides his exclusive perspectives and analyses of important case decisions. New summaries appearing on today's Daily Wire include:

- Fifth Circuit Reads Section 707(a) Dismissal for 'Cause' Broadly'
- Courts Spilt on Offsetting Government’s Non-Tax Claim Against a Tax Refund

- UCC Inapplicable to Define 'Received for 20-Day Administrative Claims in Foreign Trade

Tap into Rochelle's Daily Wire via the ABI Newsroom, Daily Headlines e-mail and Twitter!

USTP Announces Notice of Public Hearing and Reopened Comment Period for Proposed Procedures for Completing Uniform Periodic Reports in Non-Small Business Cases Filed Under Chapter 11 of Title 11

The U.S. Trustee Program (USTP) on Nov. 10 published in the Federal Register a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) seeking public comment on the proposed rules requiring uniform periodic reports by debtors-in-possession or trustees in non-small business cases under chapter 11 and the proposed periodic report forms. After analyzing the comments to the NPRM and proposed forms, and because certain public commenters asked to meet with representatives of the USTP to discuss the NPRM and proposed forms, the USTP has decided to hold a public hearing on Feb. 17, 2016, from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. ET in the Executive Conference Center in the Executive Office for U.S. Trustees in Washington, D.C. The hearing on the NPRM will provide an opportunity for interested parties to express their views directly to USTP officials. The USTP has also reopened the comment period and will accept new and supplemental comments from the public on or before Feb. 22, 2016, via www.regulations.gov. Those who register to attend and make a presentation at the public hearing must have either a written comment or statement on file by the registration deadline of Jan. 6, 2016. For more information, please click here.