Seadrill New Finance Ltd. received court approval for a chapter 11 plan Wednesday to hand control to creditors after a single day in bankruptcy, bringing its parent company, offshore rig operator Seadrill Ltd., one step closer to completing its own restructuring, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Seadrill New Finance, a Seadrill Ltd. financing subsidiary, sped through bankruptcy after filing for chapter 11 protection on Tuesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston. The financing unit filed for bankruptcy with a prepackaged restructuring plan in hand, backed by creditors holding more than 99% of its $535 million in secured notes, according to a court filing by Tyson de Souza, an authorized representative of New Finance. In approving New Finance’s one-day bankruptcy, Judge David Jones set aside objections to the fast-track nature of the process raised by the office of the U.S. Trustee, an arm of the Justice Department charged with overseeing the bankruptcy courts. The speed with which the company sought the judge’s approval is unprecedented compared even with other prepackaged chapter 11 cases, leaving interested parties with inadequate time to object or respond to the company’s restructuring plan, Stephen Statham, a lawyer for the U.S. Trustee’s office said at the hearing yesterday. Judge Jones, however, argued that the New Finance case should be viewed in a different light than other one-day bankruptcy cases because it is a company with no operations. The bankruptcy is one piece of a larger group of Seadrill cases, including for New Finance parent Seadrill Ltd. Seadrill Partners LLC, a New Finance subsidiary filed for bankruptcy in December 2020, and exited from court protection last year.
