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Bankrupt New York Military Academy (NYMA), a 126-year-old preparatory school on the Hudson River that counts billionaire Donald Trump among its graduates, was sold yesterday after a bidding war between groups backed by two China-based investors, Reuters reported yesterday. The winning bid of $15.83 million came from the non-profit group Research Center on Natural Conservation, backed by a principal of China-based SouFun Holdings Ltd. They beat out California-based Global Preparatory Academies, which was funded by other Chinese investors, NYMA's lawyer Lewis Wrobel told Reuters. NYMA, located in Cornwall, New York, owed approximately $11.5 million to $12 million to creditors, principally local real estate firm Cornwall Improvement, Wrobel said.

Landlords are up in arms over grocer Haggen's high-speed retreat from a rapid West Coast expansion that landed the company in bankruptcy, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. More than 100 stores will be shut down to pay off lenders that financed the disastrous growth spurt, and landlords say the company is taking inappropriate shortcuts. The decision to close down most of Haggen's stores was announced just weeks into the chapter 11 proceeding, less than a year after a deal that transformed the long-time Pacific Northwest grocery chain into a regional player.

Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. is selling 12 of its stores to Wakefern Food Corp. for $40 million, subject to higher bids at an auction, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. In a Thursday filing with U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y., A&P asked for the auction in accordance with “discrete” sales procedures already authorized by a judge for the stores that weren’t part of the initial group to be sold when it entered bankruptcy. If no objection is filed, no hearing will be held. If competing bids emerge, A&P will hold an Oct. 8 auction for the stores. If another bidder wins, that party must pay Wakefern a $1.2 million breakup fee.

A federal judge ordered an investigation into a $6.8 million transaction that would reshuffle the ownership of bankrupt New Hampshire manufacturer of Coolcore fabric used in sportswear, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. In a court order, Judge Bruce A. Harwood gave a New Hampshire lawyer seven days to file a report on whether Coolcore officials have reached out to potential buyers who could challenge a purchase offer from the company's lender and majority owner, Schleicher & Stebbins Hotels LLC. That entity owns 55 percent of the Coolcore's shares and has proposed to buy the company by forgiving roughly $6.8 million in debt, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manchester, N.H. In his court order, Judge Harwood told Michael S. Askenaizer to investigate whether Schleicher & Stebbins Hotels should be able to use the full amount of debt to purchase the company and whether the buyer got any other advantage in negotiating the deal.

The high bid in a bankruptcy auction yesterday for Renault Winery Resort and Golf came from the property’s mortgagee, OceanFirst Bank, which made a credit bid on the still-open resort, the Press of Atlantic City (N.J.) reported today. The Toms River, N.J.-based bank obtained a $7.7 million mortgage foreclosure judgment against Renault last summer. The property was on the verge of going to a sheriff’s sale before the 150-year-old vineyard filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November. A hearing for a federal judge to approve a sale is scheduled for Thursday in Camden, N.J. Read more. 

For further analysis of issues surrounding credit bidding, be sure to pick up a copy of ABI’s Credit Bidding in Bankruptcy Sales: A Guide for Lenders, Creditors, and Distressed-Debt Investors. 

Affiliates of Paul Singer’s Elliott Management are again attempting to thwart the sale of Relativity Media LLC, a Hollywood film and TV studio, at a bankruptcy auction next week, the Wall Street Journal reported today. In preliminary objections filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, the affiliates, Heatherden Securities LLC and Manchester Securities Corp., said the sale process has advanced too quickly and ignores the firms’ rights. Manchester, which is one of Relativity’s biggest lenders and has about $138 million on the line, has also complained that the sale process will likely leave it penniless. Lawyers for Heatherden said in court papers that the firm “continues to believe that [Relativity’s] business has substantially greater value than is likely to be achieved through the proposed sale, and that it is not a foregone conclusion that this value cannot be made available to the estates and their creditors.”

Blackhawk Mining LLC said it’s the winning bidder in a bankruptcy auction for most of Patriot Coal Corp.’s assets, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Patriot in May selected Lexington, Ky.-based Blackhawk as the stalking-horse bidder in an auction to set a benchmark price for most of the bankrupt producer’s assets. Earlier that month, Patriot filed for chapter 11 for the second time in less than three years. Blackhawk has been feasting on defunct companies. The producer, owned by Mitch Potter, son of a Kentucky coal entrepreneur and backed by Stellus Capital Investment Corp., bought assets from James River Coal Co. out of bankruptcy last year.

A New York state judge is overseeing the forced sale of two apartments at the Dakota, the prestigious co-op on West 72nd Street and Central Park West, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The apartments, including one with a view of the park just above the treetops, are owned by Alphonse Fletcher Jr., a hedge-fund manager whose main investment fund filed for bankruptcy protection in 2012. At a hearing tomorrow in Manhattan, state Supreme Court Justice Anil C. Singh asked a lawyer for the Dakota to provide the names of three brokers, one of whom would be picked to conduct the sale, intended to raise money to satisfy creditors.