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With the approval of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court Western District of New York, Eastern Niagara Hospital will sell its closed Newfane campus for $1 million, Buffalo Business First reported. Anne McCaffrey, hospital president, said that the approval allows the hospital to move forward with a purchase agreement with Costello Holdings, which is considering several options for the campus, including senior housing or assisted living. Costello Holdings, the Florida-based company that also owns the historic Bewley Building in Lockport and dozens of residential and multi-tenant apartment units in Niagara County, said that it would likely seek a partner to operate the campus. The campus was closed last year just before Eastern Niagara filed for chapter 11 protection. The campus includes the main hospital, a 63,106-square-foot facility with 74 rooms, and a secondary building. The site was renovated in 2018 as a home for the hospital's expanded inpatient addictions program. Eastern Niagara Hospital announced recently that it will also close its Lockport hospital as part of a collaboration with Catholic Health, which plans to open a $37 million hospital in the town. With revenue of $66 million in 2018, Eastern Niagara has finished the last four years in the red. It was one of the region's last remaining independent hospitals.

A bankruptcy judge authorized auto supplier Garrett Motion Inc. to designate a planned sale to private-equity firm KPS Capital Partners LP as the company’s best offer to date, giving it a leg up over others ahead of a competitive process, the Wall Street Journal reported. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Wiles said that the Garrett could tap KPS as the lead bidder, or stalking horse, to set a minimum price for the company and also approved $84 million in breakup fees and expenses for the proposed deal. Winning the stalking-horse designation was a key hurdle for KPS in its push to buy Garrett despite opposition from a majority of Garrett’s shareholders as well as former parent Honeywell International Inc., the creditor with the most to lose if the bankruptcy sale goes through.

U.S. firm Syncapay Inc. has bought the North American unit of German payments company Wirecard AG, Wirecard’s insolvency administrator said yesterday, Reuters reported. The deal is backed by private investment management firm Centerbridge Partners, which is making a majority equity investment in Syncapay, and existing Syncapay shareholders like Bain Capital Ventures and Silversmith Capital Partners, the statement added. Wirecard North America had put itself up for sale late in June after its troubled parent firm filed for insolvency. The unit had said back then that Wirecard North America was a separate legal and business entity of Wirecard and was “substantially autonomous” from the German company. Wirecard collapsed in June after a 1.9 billion euro ($2.25 billion) hole was discovered in its books in what has been Germany’s biggest post-war corporate fraud. Wirecard North America has been re-branded as North Lane Technologies and combined with a Syncapay subsidiary named daVinci Payments, the parties said in a separate statement.

Ascena Retail Group Inc., the parent company of apparel retailers Ann Taylor and Lane Bryant, has received a new, higher stalking horse offer to buy the intellectual property, e-commerce business and other assets of its tween-oriented chain Justice out of bankruptcy, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The $44 million bid from brand management company Bluestar Alliance LLC trumps a previous $35 million offer from Premier Brands Justice LLC, an acquisition vehicle of apparel maker and distributor IHL Group. Premier’s offer for the Justice chain hadn’t been completed as the stalking-horse bid, meaning Bluestar’s higher bid now is the lead offer. Bluestar won’t charge Ascena a breakup fee if the deal falls through, compared with the $1.05 million breakup fee that Ascena would have had to pay IHL Group, a division of USA Apparel Group Inc. IHL’s portfolio of licensed brands includes Aéropostale, BCBG, Rachel Roy and Daisy Fuentes. Bluestar’s offer, unveiled in court papers Tuesday, includes reimbursing Ascena up to $200,000 in expenses for legal and other fees, less than the $450,000 negotiated with IHL. Founded in 2006, Bluestar manages more than 100 stores and over 300 licensees, including brands such as Brookstone, Tahari and Bebe, according to its website.

J.C. Penney Co. has formalized a planned sale to its bankruptcy lenders and biggest landlords, but must first finalize a staggering lease agreement in less than a week to close the deal, Bloomberg News reported. The retailer yesterday filed a draft purchase agreement detailing a plan to sell itself to mall owners Simon Property Group Inc., Brookfield Property Partners and its senior lenders. But the parties have until Monday to finalize a master lease agreement between the mall landlords and the lenders who will own most of the retailer’s real estate, Josh Sussberg of Kirkland & Ellis said in a court hearing on behalf of J.C. Penney. It’ll be a sprint to wrap up “what I assume to be one of the longest and most complex lease agreements known to mankind,” said Judge David Jones, who is presiding over the case. A lawyer for J.C. Penney’s biggest lenders echoed the sentiment, saying that it’s “beyond the most complex document I’ve ever seen” and has “so many open issues.” J.C. Penney is also facing a competing sale proposal from a smaller group of lenders including Aurelius Capital Management. That group has obtained financing commitments for a similarly structured deal at a “much higher and much better” price, Phil Dublin of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld said on behalf of the lenders. The current purchase agreement follows an arduous sale process that included marathon mediation sessions last weekend, Sussberg said, adding the parties agreed to the structure of the deal just after 6 a.m. Tuesday. Sussberg said he’s “highly confident” that “J.C. Penney’s future is secure.” The sale may save more than 60,000 jobs at the retailer, according to court papers.

Distressed-debt investor Lynn Tilton waited too long to bid on mapmaker Rand McNally, a judge ruled yesterday in rejecting the financier’s effort to buy the company she once managed., Bloomberg News reported. Tilton argued that her last-minute offer of $46 million is higher than the bid Rand’s current managers have already accepted from Teleo Capital Management. The decision is just the latest in a years-long court battle Tilton has been waging with noteholders and the court-appointed overseer of her bankrupt collateralized loan funds -- Zohar I, II & III. Those funds borrowed about $2.5 billion in order to buy distressed companies and distressed loans. About $1.8 billion of that debt matured without being repaid, according to court documents. Under a deal between the noteholders and Tilton, Rand and other companies tied to the Zohar bankruptcy may be sold in order to raise money to pay off creditors. But Zohar’s independent manager is pushing back on Tilton’s offer, saying she waited too long to bid. Teleo’s offer is also worth more in part because Zohar would retain the right to file claims against Tilton, including for “millions of dollars of payments to these former insiders,” according to court papers. 

Ascena Retail Group Inc., the parent company of Ann Taylor and Lane Bryant, got a $35 million offer to buy tween chain Justice out of bankruptcy and turn it into a primarily online brand, the Wall Street Journal reported. The company has reached a deal for Premier Brands Justice LLC, an acquisition vehicle of apparel maker and distributor IHL Group, to serve as the stalking-horse bidder for the sale of the intellectual property, e-commerce business and other assets of the Justice brand. New York-based IHL, a division of USA Apparel Group Inc., has a portfolio of licensed brands including Aéropostale, BCBG, Rachel Roy and Daisy Fuentes. The Justice deal includes the assumption of certain liabilities and the potential to assume contracts and unexpired leases. The agreement is subject to better bids and final approval by the bankruptcy court.

The bankrupt operator of New York Sports Clubs and Lucille Roberts gyms has received court approval to conduct a speedy chapter 11 sale process, positioning the company to sell itself by next month to a group of lenders and a private-equity firm, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The lenders and Tacit Capital LLC last month agreed to serve as the lead bidder, or stalking horse, to acquire assets of Town Sports International Holdings Inc., valuing their deal at about $85 million, the minimum price for other bidders to beat. Judge Christopher Sontchi of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., said Friday he would approve the bidding rules that will subject the Tacit-led offer to other bids. “I’m perfectly happy to approve the bid procedures order as modified and as consensual and uncontested,” Judge Sontchi said during a hearing held by phone and video. The deadline to submit qualified bids is Oct. 26, followed by an auction, if necessary. The company is targeting early November to get the sale approved given liquidity concerns, Town Sports lawyer Joshua Altman said.

The owner of the New York Sports Clubs and Lucille Roberts gyms is seeking to speed up a planned sale of its business in bankruptcy court as pandemic pressures mount in the fitness industry, Bloomberg News reported. Town Sports International Holdings Inc. asked for court permission to shorten the timeline to sell itself to a group of investors or other interested parties, court papers show. Given gyms’ cash constraints and liquidity needs during the pandemic, the company is seeking to complete the sale by early next month. Lenders have submitted an initial credit bid for around $80 million. The fitness chain is still marketing its assets and has had “various levels of attendant discussions with nearly 50 potential bidders,” Christopher Wilson, an adviser to the company at Houlihan Lokey Inc., wrote in court papers. The sale must be approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge <b>Christopher Sontchi</b> of Delaware. A hearing to approve bidding motions is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Friday, with objections due the same day. Plans call for an Oct. 26 bid deadline and a sale hearing on Nov. 2.