Exide Technologies LLC won bankruptcy court approval Thursday to sell its Americas battery business to an affiliate of Atlas Holdings for $178.6 million, the Wall Street Journal reported. The buyer is Atlas Capital Resources, a fund managed by Atlas Holdings, a manager of investments in industrial manufacturing and distribution businesses. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi approved the sale yesterday at a hearing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., where Exide is proceeding through chapter 11 for the third time. Earlier bankruptcies chopped down Exide’s debt load, but the company’s revenue failed to catch up. The current bankruptcy, which began in May, offers hope in the form of a settlement with federal and state environmental authorities over contamination left behind by Exide’s operations. Over the years, the maker and recycler of lead-acid batteries for cars and industrial use has closed sites, including a major facility in Vernon, Calif., that had been contaminated with pollution. Exide’s contaminated sites are destined for abandonment, with regulators left to clean up once the company wraps up its corporate affairs. Litigation with California regulators over the Vernon plant that began during a 2013 chapter 11 case continued as late as March. Terms of the new agreement are being presented to assorted regulators for approval, after mediations between Exide and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and environmental agencies in more than a half-dozen states.
A group of lenders steering J.C. Penney Co.’s bankruptcy process is asking potential buyers of the retail chain to increase their bids after a round of offers in July were seen as too low, Bloomberg News reported. The lenders are pushing for offers closer to the approximately $2.2 billion of J.C. Penney’s debt they hold. Earlier proposals from mall owners and retail firms added up to payments of about $1.8 billion. If those don’t improve, the lenders could acquire the company through a credit bid, in which they forgive the debt in return for ownership. A bid from mall owners Simon Property Group Inc. and Brookfield Property Partners LP is viewed more favorably in part because it’s likely to preserve the most jobs. The two landlords have an incentive to keep J.C. Penney alive because it’s one of their largest tenants. J.C. Penney employed almost 85,000 people when it went bankrupt in May. Private equity firm Sycamore Partners and Saks Fifth Avenue owner Hudson’s Bay Co. were also among the first round of bidders. Both firms own retail chains they could potentially combine with J.C. Penney or some of its brands.
The history of the newspaper business was on display at a hearing yesterday, when a federal bankruptcy judge confirmed the sale of the McClatchy Company, a newspaper chain run by the same family since 1857, to a New Jersey hedge fund in a deal valued at $312 million, the New York Times reported. The sale of McClatchy, the owner of The Sacramento Bee, The Miami Herald and more than two dozen other news outlets in 14 states, to Chatham Asset Management was in the works since February, when McClatchy filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after more than a decade of losses and cutbacks. The deal, which will move a prestigious news publisher from family control to an investment company, is in keeping with a broader trend that has alarmed many press advocates, who argue that finance firms are imperfect stewards of an industry built on the watchdog work of chronicling government and commerce. At the 3 p.m. hearing, Judge Michael E. Wiles approved the result of an auction held last month in which Chatham, a fund that controls more than $4 billion in assets, emerged as the winning bidder. The hedge fund offered to convert the more than $262 million it owns in McClatchy debt into equity in a Chatham-owned version of the company. It also agreed to throw in roughly $49 million in cash and will pay additional costs, including employee payroll, that McClatchy incurred since filing for bankruptcy. After the sale becomes official — probably by September — Chatham will become the owner, and the publicly traded McClatchy will go private. The company’s chairman, Kevin S. McClatchy, the great-great-grandson of the founder, James McClatchy, and its chief executive, Craig Forman, said they planned to depart once the deal closes. The company will not be split up after it emerges from bankruptcy, according to the terms of the agreement. In a July 24 news release, McClatchy said Chatham’s bid would allow it to retain most of its employees and honor its collective bargaining agreements.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson will buy the assets of the bankrupt professional football league XFL as part of a group bid with his business partner Dany Garcia and Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird Capital Partners, Bloomberg News reported. The group is paying $15 million for substantially all of the assets of Alpha Entertainment LLC, the parent company of the XFL, according to a statement yesterday. Johnson and Garcia were looking at buying the XFL at the same time as Cardinale, with the two groups then deciding to join together to complete the purchase, Garcia said in an interview Monday morning. Garcia and Johnson were previously married. “We were simultaneously all examining the property deeply,” said Garcia, who was a big fan of the XFL in its 2020 season and called Johnson when she saw the opportunity to buy it. “We were two groups who could see the magic of this league.” Cardinale is a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. partner and his private investment firm RedBird manages $4 billion of capital. Cardinale partnered with the Steinbrenner family in 2002 to launch the YES Network, the no. 1 regional sports network in the U.S., according to the Redbird website. The sale is subject to bankruptcy court approval at a hearing Friday and may be completed around August 21. Alpha Entertainment filed for bankruptcy in April after the COVID-19 pandemic forced the shutdown of the league’s first season. The upstart football league was founded in 2017 by promoter Vince McMahon, best known for making professional wrestling into a global business, and played its first game in 2020, according to a court filing. McMahon withdrew his bid to buy the XFL out of bankruptcy in May after opposition from creditors.
McClatchy Co. notified a federal bankruptcy judge on Wednesday that it needs more time to negotiate the terms of its sale to the New Jersey hedge fund that won the company at auction last week, the Sacramento Bee reported. Chatham Asset Management was named Sunday as the winning bidder for the nation’s second largest local news company, and McClatchy said at the time that it expected to reach agreement on terms before the court’s 11:59 p.m. ET Wednesday deadline. Instead, less than an hour before that deadline, McClatchy announced that a deal was close, but not yet done. “The parties are still in the process of finalizing the transactional documents and expect to file such documents on or before Friday, July 17, 2020,” lawyers for McClatchy said in a filing that hit the court docket just after 11 p.m. In a statement after the filing, McClatchy called the negotiations “a multiparty process.” “All of us, along with Chatham, are working productively, around-the-clock, and there are very few details left to hammer out,” the statement said. The delay is the third since July 8, when the auction was initially scheduled, then postponed twice. McClatchy did not disclose what the sticking points might be, and representatives for Chatham did not respond to an email seeking comment. Bankruptcy Judge Michael E. Wiles is scheduled to sign off on the agreement at a hearing on July 24.
RSG Group GmbH, operator of Germany’s McFit fitness clubs, has won an auction to acquire Gold’s Gym International Inc. out of bankruptcy for $100 million, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The pending sale, which must be approved in bankruptcy court, puts Gold’s Gym on a path to leave chapter 11 with 61 corporate-owned gyms, about 600 franchise gyms and less debt, positioning it to withstand major disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the company said yesterday. One of Europe’s largest gym operators, RSG Group topped an initial $80 million offer from TRT Holdings Inc., a holding company led by billionaire Robert Rowling that acquired a majority stake in Gold’s Gym in 2004. Gold’s Gym went to auction as creditors asked the company to canvass the market after receiving expressions of interest from other parties. RSG Group’s McFit fitness clubs have more than 250 locations in Germany, Austria, Poland, Spain and Italy, according to the company’s website. The gym operator also owns several other brands, including the John Reed and John & Jane’s fitness clubs, and said it has expanded this year into the U.S., Turkey and France. The deal would ensure that Gold’s Gym survives the coronavirus pandemic under new ownership. The company filed for chapter 11 protection in May after it was forced to close its gyms because of COVID-19. The pandemic has been particularly challenging on the U.S. fitness industry which has been attempting to safely reopen gyms in states and counties that allow it.
