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A Minneapolis hedge fund is defending its right to buy the assets of Texas oil company WBH Energy LP at a bankruptcy auction by use of a credit bid against the protests of other creditors that want to challenge its claims on the assets, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Lawyers for Castlelake LP said in a court filing on Tuesday that the hedge fund has the right to bid the full value of its secured claim against WBH Energy at a bankruptcy auction scheduled for August. Castlelake, which invests in troubled companies and distressed debt, has agreed to serve as the stalking-horse bidder at the auction with a $25 million offer.

Energy Future Holdings Corp. may be seeing a path out of chapter 11 protection with investors circling the company's prize asset, Oncor, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. A sale of Oncor, which is shielded from its parent's financial trouble and rakes in cash from a transmissions business watched closely by regulators, would be the largest distressed mergers and acquisition transaction on record. Billions of dollars in new money is flowing toward a deal to take over Energy Future's stake in Oncor, which could be worth $17 billion or more. Energy Future Holdings has spent the last 12 months stalled out in bankruptcy court amid the ruins of a carefully orchestrated strategy to tackle the debt load, the legacy of a 2007 leveraged buyout.

RadioShack has agreed to mediation with state attorneys general concerned about the electronic retailer's planned sale of customer data as part of its bankruptcy reorganization, the Associated Press reported yesterday. A RadioShack attorney told a bankruptcy judge yesterday that the mediation, which will include a consumer privacy ombudsman, will start May 14. That's after a scheduled May 11 auction for intellectual property assets including the names and addresses of millions of RadioShack customers. RadioShack is seeking to sell 8.5 million customer email addresses and 65 million complete customer name and address files, along with what it calls "transaction data."

Lawyers for soup and salad chain Saladworks LLC said that they have secured a $15 million bid to kick off an auction for the company next month, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Saladworks officials said in court papers that they plan to start the May 27 auction with a bid from an entity called SW Acquisition Co. LLC. Dozens of buyers have been evaluating Saladworks, which filed for bankruptcy on Feb. 17 amid an ownership dispute, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del.

The lack of enough creditors owed enough money could end up blocking Bill Gates from using chapter 11 to reacquire two remaining power plants of which he’s already the secured lender and owner, as a consequence of a technical provision in the Bankruptcy Code, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Gates’s Optim Energy LLC, once the owner of three electric power plants, has plenty of debt, but mostly to Gates-owned Cascade Investment LLC, a secured creditor still owed $596.5 million following the sale of one of the three plants. The problem for Gates, co-founder of Microsoft Corp., is that Optim doesn’t have enough creditors, because the main one aside from Cascade is a former coal supplier now owned by an affiliate of Blackstone Energy Partners LP that’s adamantly opposed to the plan.

Surgery-monitoring company ProNerve LLC won a bankruptcy court's permission to sell itself to SpecialtyCare IOM Services LLC in a $35 million debt-for-equity swap after failing to attract any other qualified offers, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey signed off on the deal following a hearing Friday. The approval takes ProNerve one step closer to fulfilling a plan to liquidate its remaining assets, pay creditors and ultimately exit chapter 11 protection. An auction had been scheduled for April 8, but an offer from Prasari LLC, the only other bid received, didn't quality because it didn't exceed the $35 million floor set by SpecialtyCare.

Headed to the bankruptcy auction block in May is the well-known trademark of RadioShack, as well as the data of millions of customers and contracts with hundreds of independent dealers strung across small-town America, who have been selling under the RadioShack name for decades, the Wall Street Journal reported today. It is all for sale in a bankruptcy that, so far, has only paid off part of the $1 billion or so in debt that had pushed RadioShack Corp. into bankruptcy in February. While much of the business was saved through a takeover by Standard General LP, the corporate shell of RadioShack left behind in chapter 11 is still trying to scrape up more cash for creditors. More than half the 4,000 stores are being liquidated, but the hedge fund rescued over 1,700 stores and is leading a revival of the retailing operation.

A judge yesterday said that Doral Financial Corp. could auction off its insurance arm with a $10.75 million bid by Anglo-Puerto Rican Insurance Corp. serving as the lead offer, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Shelley C. Chapman approved procedures for the auction of Doral Insurance Agency LLC, which Doral Financial had said would likely experience a “rapid and substantial decline” in value if it isn’t sold soon. Anglo-Puerto Rican, the lead bidder, would receive a $250,000 breakup fee if another party wins at auction, which will be held May 12 if competing bids emerge. Doral Financial, whose primary asset was Puerto Rico’s Doral Bank that failed in February, didn’t place the insurance unit into Chapter 11 when it filed for bankruptcy last month. But because about 40 percent of Doral Insurance’s commissions come from business generated by Doral Bank customers, that flow would be gone if Doral Bank is placed in receivership in Puerto Rico.

Bankruptcy Judge John Waites on Monday authorized lawyers for the Golf Club at Briar’s Creek in South Carolina to send the course’s sale proposal to current and former club members who are expecting to recover less than half of $13 million in owed refunds, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The proposal would sell the club to investors for $7.4 million in cash. Under the plan, investors — led by Houston Texans football team owner Bob McNair — would take over the private, 18-hole course near Charleston. Judge Waites promised to look over the voting results from members and other creditors at a May 13 bankruptcy confirmation hearing. The course, which employs about 50 people, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Feb. 9, saying that 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. The club, which has about 210 members, also saw its membership shrink during the economic recession.

The developer recently approved to buy Atlantic City, N.J.’s Revel Casino Hotel out of bankruptcy has released more details on his $500 million plan to revitalize the seaside town, which has faced precipitous declines in tourism and gambling revenue since 2006, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. In a statement released on Friday, Florida-based developer Glenn Straub said that his eight-part “Phoenix Project” aims to transform Atlantic City with a host of amenities targeting affluent tourists, sports enthusiasts, families and even retirees. Fulfilling the first step of the plan, Bankruptcy Judge Gloria Burns signed an order yesterday approving the sale of Revel to Mr. Straub for $82 million. The purchase price represents a more than 96 percent discount from the $2.4 billion it cost to build the resort, which first opened its doors in 2012 but never turned a profit. The deal is expected to close today.