Restaurant franchisee NPC International Inc. has settled all the major disputes that had threatened to hold up a plan to sell its Pizza Hut locations to Flynn Restaurant Group, lawyers told a federal bankruptcy judge on Friday, Bloomberg News reported. Pizza Hut attorney Charles Gibbs said during a video court hearing that the company expects to sign a consent agreement in the next few days with Flynn, allowing the restaurateur to close a deal to buy NPC’s operations of the chain. When NPC filed for bankruptcy last year, it operated more than 1,200 Pizza Hut locations and nearly 400 Wendy’s Co. restaurants. In November, NPC called off auctions for its Pizza Hut and Wendy’s restaurants because the offers were too low, an NPC lawyer said last month. Instead, the company entered settlement talks that ultimately led to the current deal. The agreement will see Flynn purchase the Pizza Hut locations, while a group of Wendy’s franchisees will buy the burger restaurants. Wendy’s has agreed to be the backup buyer for the burger locations in case the agreement with franchise holders falls through, a lawyer for the fast-food chain said during the hearing.
Houston-based specialty apparel retailer Francesca's Holding Corp. is one step closer to selling its business to a private investor, the Houston Business Journal reported. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware has approved the company's auction process, Francesca's announced Jan. 8. Bids are due by 4 p.m. Eastern Time on Jan. 13, and the auction is set for 10 a.m. Eastern Time on Jan. 15. The auction will only be held if Francesca's receives one or more qualified bids. If not, Francesca's will seek the bankruptcy court's approval of its stalking-horse asset purchase agreement. Francesca's also announced Jan. 8 that it formalized the stalking-horse agreement with an affiliate of Los Angeles-based TerraMar Capital LLC and with New York-based Tiger Capital Group LLC. The buyers have agreed to purchase substantially all of the assets of Francesca's and its subsidiaries for approximately $17 million in cash, subject to certain adjustments, plus the assumption of substantial liabilities. Francesca's filed for chapter 11 protection on Dec. 3 with plans to sell itself. At the time, Francesca's and TerraMar had signed a letter of intent regarding a stalking-horse bidder agreement, and the retailer said that it wanted to hold an auction as expeditiously as possible.
NPC International Inc., the bankrupt Wendy’s and Pizza Hut franchisee, agreed to sell its restaurants in separate deals worth roughly $800 million involving Flynn Restaurant Group LLC and Wendy’s International LLC, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. NPC, the nation’s largest franchisee of Pizza Hut and Wendy’s restaurants, said yesterday that Flynn will acquire all of its more than 925 Pizza Hut locations, along with roughly half of its nearly 400 Wendy’s sites and substantially all of its shared-service assets. Wendy’s International, meanwhile, will acquire over 190 of NPC’s Wendy’s locations and assign the right to buy the restaurants to five current franchisees, court filings show. Flynn would take over NPC’s Pizza Hut restaurants as well as Wendy’s units in Salt Lake City and parts of Maryland for roughly $553 million. Wendy’s International, along with certain of its franchisees, agreed to acquire Wendy’s restaurants in Pennsylvania; Kansas City, Mo.; Greensboro, N.C.; and Raleigh, N.C., for roughly $248 million, court filings show.
Vegan celebrity chef Chloe Coscarelli is exploring a bid for bankrupt plant-based restaurant brand By Chloe, the namesake fast-casual chain she co-founded years ago but left behind after a dispute with a shareholder, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon during a hearing yesterday said that he would approve the bidding process of the chain’s parent company, BC Hospitality Group Inc. The company, part-owned by investment firm Bain Capital LP, pushed back by about two weeks its initial timeline to sell its assets out of bankruptcy. It is now eyeing an auction in early March, if necessary, with court approval of the sale expected shortly after. It had originally contemplated an auction in mid-February. About 15 potential buyers “have expressed interest in learning more about the company to evaluate potentially submitting a bid,” according to a declaration filed by restructuring adviser Michael Mortell. “We expect our clients will have at least until Feb. 25 to make a bid to purchase their company, either through an asset sale or through a planned process,” said Scott F. Gautier, a lawyer representing Chef Chloe LLC and Ms. Coscarelli, who gained fame after winning the first prize on the Food Network series “Cupcake Wars” in 2010.
AMC Entertainment Inc. is in talks with Apollo Global Management Inc. and other top creditors over a potential financing deal backed by the cinema chain’s European assets, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. AMC, the world’s largest movie theater company, is negotiating with lenders including Apollo, Davidson Kempner Capital Management LP, and Ares Management Corp. to expand the line of credit available to the company’s U.K.-based Odeon Cinemas Group subsidiary. The company, which since October has warned of a possible bankruptcy filing as pandemic restrictions shut down theaters world-wide, has also held talks with other creditor groups and potential outside investors, the people said. AMC acquired Odeon, the largest cinema operator in Europe, in 2016. The subsidiary has a 100 million-pound revolving credit facility, worth approximately $135 million, which was fully drawn as of September. Discussions have centered on upsizing the credit facility by roughly £300 million, though the amount and structure of a potential deal are still under negotiation. AMC has been hard hit by the pandemic, which temporarily shut the doors of most of its theaters. Major Hollywood studios have either delayed releasing films or released them straight to streaming services, leaving cinemas with little content to show those viewers willing to brave a trip to the big screen.
The owner of New York Sports Clubs and Lucille Roberts is seeking fresh equity capital to stave off a cash crunch less than two months after buying the gym chains out of bankruptcy, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The investor-backed acquisition vehicle that bought the fitness chains is soliciting investors for a $2 million equity raise to improve liquidity and fund working capital needs, giving a Wednesday deadline for potential participants to indicate interest. The chains were sold out of bankruptcy in November to Peak Credit LLC, an affiliate of New York-based investment banking firm Lepercq de Neuflize & Co., as well as a number of lenders to the chains’ former owner, Town Sports International LLC. Following Town Sports’ September bankruptcy filing, private-equity firm Tacit Capital LLC had proposed serving as the stalking-horse bidder to acquire the company’s assets. Tacit backed out when it failed to come up with the $47.5 million it had pledged to post to fund operations once the bankruptcy sale closed, according to court records. Peak stepped in for Tacit with a $5 million funding commitment to capitalize an acquisition vehicle called New TSI Holdings Inc. that would own and operate the chains, according to court documents.
After real-estate data company CoStar Group Inc. said in February it would buy competitor RentPath Holdings Inc. for $587.5 million, RentPath employees sent emails to customers saying prices would likely increase after the acquisition closed, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. “If the sale does go through CoStar will control pricing for everything and most likely will go up,” a RentPath regional account manager said in a customer email after the deal was announced, according to a lawsuit filed Monday by CoStar that was ineffectively redacted. Days later in February, a RentPath salesperson told customers in southern New Jersey and Philadelphia, “I am strongly suggesting to all clients to lock in our low pricing because if the sale goes through it will not exist EVER again,” the lawsuit said. CoStar said in yesterday’s lawsuit that it was worried that the messages could be used by federal antitrust regulators to block the acquisition and that RentPath management didn’t correct information its employees sent to customers, despite requests from CoStar. In November, the Federal Trade Commission said it would block the deal, saying the transaction “would likely lead to anticompetitive effects.” The RentPath employee messages were outlined in a lawsuit CoStar filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., where RentPath filed for chapter 11 protection in February. CoStar cited the emails to support its allegation RentPath management engaged in “a customer misinformation campaign designed to boost RentPath’s short-term sales while poisoning the FTC approval process.” The companies are now fighting in court over the deal’s collapse. RentPath terminated the agreement and is seeking a $58.75 million breakup fee from CoStar, which has denied it is liable. CoStar said that RentPath didn’t do its best to make sure regulators would approve the transaction and now wants a bankruptcy judge to rule the company violated the terms of the agreement.
Quibi is in advanced talks to sell its content catalog to Roku Inc. as the short-form streaming service winds down its operations following an unsuccessful run, the Wall Street Journal reported. Quibi, which was founded by the movie mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, raised $1.75 billion with an ambitious plan to develop high-end content for mobile phones. But the service, which launched in April, never gained traction and Quibi said in October that it was shutting down. Roku, which sells the most popular streaming-media player in the U.S., is pushing aggressively into content with its own ad-supported app, the Roku Channel, which offers movies and shows produced by other companies. A deal with Quibi would give Roku a roster of exclusive programming. Under the terms the companies have discussed, Roku would acquire rights to Quibi’s library. Financial terms of the proposed deal couldn’t be learned, and the deal talks could still fall apart. Quibi has struck deals with producers that allow Quibi to exhibit their shows on its service for seven years. Some of the contracts suggest that the content can’t be aired on other platforms, some people familiar with the deal terms said. One person familiar with Roku’s view said the contract terms wouldn’t prevent the company from showing the content on its service.