The RadioShack brand will live on after a family office already owed $23 million by the bankrupt U.S. electronics chain agreed to assume ownership of it, as no other buyers submitted better bids this week, Reuters reported yesterday. An affiliate of Kensington Capital Holdings, a family office based in the Boston suburbs, is set to acquire RadioShack's intellectual property after it submitted a $15 million bid. Kensington had made a $23 million loan to RadioShack after it exited its first bankruptcy two years ago and had secured a deal with U.S. wireless carrier Sprint Corp. to co-brand 1,400 stores. The deadline for other bidders to make offers was Tuesday, but no better proposals were received.
Interested parties have until the end of this week to bid on about 5,500 artifacts from the sunken ship Titanic, some intellectual property relating to video footage and imagery of the wreck, and the rights to explore and salvage the wreckage site for more objects, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The auction is the first of its kind for the ship’s treasures and goods, and comes more than a year after Premier Exhibitions Inc., the company behind the traveling “Titanic” and “Bodies” exhibitions, filed for bankruptcy. Potential buyers are bidding on such trinkets as a bronze cherub from the grand staircase used by first-class passengers, a blue sapphire ring surrounded by 14 small diamonds, a steward’s jacket and a silver-plated chocolate pot used in the ship’s first-class restaurant. Private-equity firms and other companies have reportedly already expressed interest in the sale. Offers are due Friday, and if more than one is received, an auction is scheduled for November.
Sears Canada Inc. yesterday was granted court approval to proceed with a sale process that would allow the retailer to consider a range of potential deals, Reuters reported. A report by the court-appointed monitor FTI Consulting posted on its website on Wednesday said that more than 20 parties have signed non-disclosure agreements with Sears Canada as part of the planned sale process. Earlier this week, Edward Lampert's ESL Partners LP and Fairholme, which own about two-thirds of Sears Canada, said that they were considering a potential deal with the retailer and had engaged a legal adviser. The sale process, which will be conducted by BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc, would consider bids and proposals for deals involving its business, assets and leases, either in whole or in part. Sears Canada, which in 2012 was spun off from U.S. retailer Sears Holdings Corp, filed for creditor protection in June and laid out a restructuring plan that included cutting 2,900 jobs and closing roughly a quarter of its stores.
