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American Apparel, once a high-flying retailer that peaked at more than $600 million in sales, is probably headed toward liquidation after a bankruptcy auction ended with Canadian T-shirt and underwear maker Gildan Activewear Inc. buying intellectual property and other assets for $88 million, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. This transaction doesn’t include American Apparel’s stores, and the fate of its garment workers in Los Angeles remains in doubt. The company had 4,700 employees and 110 stores as of November, when it filed for bankruptcy for the second time in 13 months. Gildan said that it has no obligation to keep any American Apparel employees. The end comes about two years after American Apparel’s board orchestrated the firing of founder and chief executive officer, Dov Charney, for alleged misconduct, which he denies. Charney engaged in a bruising -- and ultimately futile -- public battle to regain control. Saddled with high-interest debt racked up during Charney’s tenure, American Apparel first filed for bankruptcy in October 2015 and was taken over by former bondholders led by Monarch Alternative Capital. But the reorganization did little to slow American Apparel’s decline as sales continued falling. 

Canadian apparel maker Gildan Activewear Inc. said that it had won a bankruptcy auction to buy U.S. fashion retailer American Apparel for about $88 million in cash, Reuters reported today. The deal is subject to approval from a bankruptcy court on Thursday, the company said. Under the deal, Gildan will acquire the intellectual property rights related to the American Apparel brand and certain manufacturing equipment. The company, however, will not buy any of the 110 American Apparel retail stores.

The operators of a West Virginia business park will try to sell some or all of their property as part of a bankruptcy plan, according to court documents, NationalMortgageNews.com reported yesterday. This month, the West Virginia High Technology Consortium submitted its bankruptcy reorganization plan for federal court approval. Earlier this year, the West Virginia High Technology Consortium and subsidiary companies filed for chapter 11 protection. The filing came on the heels of a federal lawsuit in which Huntington Bank alleged the consortium owed it nearly $20 million.

Big Apple Circus is planning a February bankruptcy auction for the right to acquire its copyrights, trademarks and other intellectual property and circus equipment, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The procedure for the auction, described in court papers submitted on Friday by the circus’s lawyers, will need to be approved by a bankruptcy judge. Though the future of the Big Apple Circus remains uncertain, an auction may be the initial step toward resurrecting the show for 2017 and beyond. Circus Executive Director Will Maitland Weiss said yesterday that he’s optimistic the circus will carry on under a new owner, adding that several parties have expressed interest in purchasing the circus’s assets. Founded in 1977, the one-ring show became a New York cultural tradition, with holiday-season performances in Damrosch Park behind Lincoln Center and later on tour. But for the better part of a year, the future has been in doubt after financial problems forced management to cancel this year’s performance slate. The circus filed for bankruptcy in November.

A federal bankruptcy court judge has approved the sale of Stokes County’s (N.C.) hospital and other medical facilities for $400,000 to a for-profit organization with limited experience running hospitals, the Winston-Salem Journal reported today. An affiliate of LifeBrite Hospital Group LLC of Lilburn, Ga., has been running the Stokes facilities since July 9 — three days before the Stokes Board of Commissioners said it would stop paying for the hospital’s financial commitments. Commissioners agreed to transfer the lease for the medical facilities to Life-Brite. LifeBrite has agreed to takeover $1.3 million in Medicare and Medicaid payment obligations from for-profit Pioneer Health Services, which filed for chapter 11 protection on March 31. Pioneer entered bankruptcy with seven other hospitals under its umbrella in Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and Virginia. The Stokes medical facilities altogether have about 200 employees. The court set a closing date of Jan. 31 for the Stokes transaction. Read more. 

For more on hospital and health care insolvencies, be sure to pick up a copy of the ABI Health Care Insolvency Manual, Third Edition from the ABI Bookstore. 

Joseph Spero, bankruptcy trustee for the Greater Erie Industrial Development Corp. (GEIDC), is seeking the approval of U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Thomas P. Agresti to sell more than 65 acres held by GEIDC to the Enterprise Development Center of Erie County for $800,000. The Enterprise Development Center is a nonprofit economic development organization led by Rick Novotny, who is also executive director of both the Erie County Redevelopment Authority and the City of Corry Redevelopment Authority. The organization plans to buy the property, address some environmental problems related to iron contamination and then sell it to SB3 LLC, which is owned by Erie businessman Samuel "Pat" Black III, owner of Hero BX biodiesel plant, Novotny said. If approved, the GEIDC sale would retire a $738,000 lien held by the Commonwealth Financing Authority. Proceeds of the sale would also be used to pay the current real estate tax bill as well as a $35,000 delinquent tax bill.

American Apparel LLC will close nine of its stores, including locations in New York and Washington, D.C., by Dec. 31 and won approval of an agreement with liquidators that would govern the closure of any stores that aren’t sold during an auction in January, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The approval on Monday by Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon means that American Apparel can begin using the notorious yellow “going out of business” signage at these nine stores, which include locations in Georgetown and Tribeca, during the next two weeks. Although the company hasn’t yet begun the aggressive liquidation promotions at these stores, it has been running sales since earlier in December, it said in court documents. Liquidation sales at these stores are likely to generate $600,000 in income for American Apparel, and their closures will save $200,000 a month in rent, it said.