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The roughly $7 million sale of the Fresh Produce retail chain, which sells vacation-inspired clothing to women, got approval from a bankruptcy judge, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Romero on Tuesday approved the chain’s sale to an investor group that includes Fresh Produce’s existing owners, Thom and Mary Ellen Vernon. The deal is expected to keep more than half of Fresh Produce’s 27 stores open. The retailer targets both tourists and “non-tourist customers for whom a ‘vacation state of mind’ resonates,” Chief Financial Officer Jo Stone said in earlier documents filed in in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Denver. The Boulder, Colo., chain filed for chapter 11 protection on April 4, blaming an “aggressive overexpansion” and high turnover in key positions.

The auction for bankrupt electronic retailer RadioShack's brand and customer data has closed with the Standard General hedge fund posting a winning bid of $26.2 million after objections piled up to their sale, Reuters reported yesterday. Standard General affiliate General Wireless, which had already bought more than 1,700 RadioShack stores, on Tuesday won the auction with the offer, well over its initial bid of $15 million on Monday, Adrienne Walker, a lawyer with Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, said yesterday. Walker had been tracking the sale for a group of RadioShack's U.S. independent dealers and franchisees. They had objected to the sale over concerns about whether they could continue to use the RadioShack trademark and whether a buyer of the customer data will be subject to their privacy policies.

Texas oil company WBH Energy LP has won approval to sell its assets to a Minneapolis hedge fund, subject to higher bids at auction, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Bankruptcy Judge H. Christopher Mott on Monday signed off the company's bid to auction off its assets, setting a minimum cash bid of $17.5 million. Minneapolis hedge fund Castlelake, which invests in troubled companies and distressed debt, has agreed to serve as the stalking-horse bidder for WBH's assets at a bankruptcy auction with a $25 million offer.

LightSquared Inc.’s bankruptcy plan gives hedge funds that invested in the broadband company a leg up while blocking telecommunications firms from competing with it, a fund owned by Dish Network Corp. Chairman Charles Ergen said in court papers appealing the plan, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. LightSquared’s reorganization was drafted by “sophisticated hedge funds that have taken a commercial bet that the spectrum owned by LightSquared might one day be usable and therefore worth many billions of dollars,” Ergen’s fund said in its filing on Monday. The fund, SP Special Opportunities LLC, is challenging specific wording in the plan that bars creditors from taking actions that could impede LightSquared’s ability to get a license for the use of its airwaves.

The auction for bankrupt electronic retailer RadioShack's name and customer data will resume on Tuesday with bidding at $15 million, Reuters reported yesterday. The high bidder is an affiliate of the Standard General hedge fund, which acquired 1,740 RadioShack stores in April, according to Adrienne Walker of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo. Walker represents a group of RadioShack's U.S. independent dealers and franchisees. They have objected to the sale over concerns about whether they could continue to use the RadioShack trademark and whether a buyer of the company's customer data will be subject to their privacy policies. The sale of RadioShack's customer data has also raised concerns about privacy, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office has objected to the sale of personally identifiable information.

Women’s clothing retailer Fresh Produce has found a buyer who promised to keep more than half of its 27 stores alive, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Fresh Produce officials said in court papers that an entity called Blue Stripe LLC is preparing to buy all but 12 stores out of bankruptcy protection. Blue Stripe beat other offers at an auction on Friday for the Fresh Produce stores and online clothing line, which targets both tourists and “non-tourist customers for whom a ‘vacation state of mind’ resonates,” said Chief Financial Officer Jo Stone in earlier documents filed in in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Denver. The Boulder, Colo., chain filed for chapter 11 protection on April 4, blaming an “aggressive overexpansion” and high turnover in key positions.

Balmoral Park and Maywood Park in Chicago are going up for sale as part of a deal to end a legal fight with Illinois riverboat casino operators, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. The casino operators won an $82 million judgment against the tracks’ owners over an alleged bribery scheme involving disgraced ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The tracks filed for bankruptcy in December to prevent the casinos from trying to collect that money. As part of a negotiated settlement between the gambling-industry competitors, racetrack officials face a June 29 deadline to hire an investment banker to help look for buyers, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Chicago.

The RadioShack trademark and other intellectual property of the electronics retailing pioneer is going up for auction today as efforts to pay creditors continue, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Carrying more than $1 billion in debt, RadioShack filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February and scrambled to shut down or sell off stores. With most of its 4,000 stores sold to new operators or vacant, RadioShack is selling its warehouses and other assets. Paying close attention to the auction is Standard General LP, the hedge fund that saved more than 1,700 RadioShack stores from closing and launched a revival in an alliance with Sprint Corp. Standard General said it would make an offer on the name and some of the other assets, but signaled it is ready to move on without the iconic brand if the price gets too high. Salus Capital Partners, which sits behind Standard General in the rankings of RadioShack lenders, has $150 million tied up in the bankruptcy and a prime claim on the name and other intellectual property. Auction rules gave Salus until Friday to say whether it is going to “credit-bid” on the intellectual property, meaning it would cancel some of the debt RadioShack owes. Read more. (Subscription required.)

For further analysis of credit-bidding in bankruptcy, be sure to pick up ABI’s newest title, Credit-Bidding in Bankruptcy Sales: A Guide for Lenders, Creditors, and Distressed-Debt Investors, in the ABI Bookstore. 

Houston Texans owner Bob McNair is preparing to buy the Golf Club at Briar’s Creek near Charleston, S.C., after a bankruptcy judge approved that deal in a court order filed on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported today. With the approval from Judge John Waites, McNair and several minority investors who teamed up to offer a bid of $11.3 million can take over the private, 18-hole course. In earlier court documents, the club’s lawyers said Mr. McNair’s offer would enable the club, which employs 50 people, to spend $2 million on both its operations and on improvements. Yet some current and resigned golf club members are expecting to recover less than half of $13 million they are owed once the sale proceeds are paid out. The purchase offer includes $7.4 million in cash, while investor Edward L. Myrick Sr., who helped found the club, would forgive a roughly $3.9 million loan he had extended. The course filed for bankruptcy protection on Feb. 9, saying it hasn’t been able to persuade more than a handful of people to build homes on its lots. The community, spread over more than 900 acres, has only eight developed housing lots, according to court documents.