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Bankrupt drugmaker Mallinckrodt is in talks with major investors about selling some or all of its business units, which could lead to its exit from the opioid business, according to a WSJ Pro Bankruptcy report. Some investors, poised to take control through the company's ongoing bankruptcy proceedings, are suggesting Mallinckrodt break up its business units. The Ireland-based company filed for its second bankruptcy in the United States last month, with a restructuring plan that would cut $1 billion from what it owes to victims of the U.S. opioid crisis. Mallinckrodt, which makes both branded and generic drugs, had first filed for bankruptcy in 2020 to address its high debt load, litigation over its marketing of highly addictive generic opioids and disputes over its drug pricing. As part of its plan to emerge from bankruptcy in June 2022, the company, which denied wrongdoing, agreed to pay $1.7 billion to settle about 3,000 lawsuits alleging it used deceptive marketing tactics to boost opioid sales. Mallinckrodt also disclosed in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission last month that it recently received a grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Virginia, seeking information about its reporting of suspicious opioid orders to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

A federal bankruptcy court hearing on Endo International's proposal to sell the pharmaceutical company to its senior lenders, which are owed nearly $6 billion, will not be held until October, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported. The hearing was initially slated to take place in late August. It was rescheduled for last week, before being rescheduled again. The new hearing date is Oct. 19 at 11 a.m. in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Objections must be filed by Oct. 12. No reason for the delay was provided in court documents. Endo is domiciled in Ireland and has its U.S. headquarters in Malvern, Pa.. The company filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last August while dealing with thousands of opioid-related lawsuits and with mountings debts of about $8 billion. The company — which now focuses on specialty pharmaceuticals, sterile injectable drugs and generic medicines — marketed generic pain medicines containing opioids up until late 2016. Its proposed deal to emerge from bankruptcy includes a provision under which the senior lenders agree to fund the almost $600 million in opioid settlements that Endo has agreed to pay to U.S. states and people affected by opioid addiction. The senior lenders have also agreed to establish a trust for future opioid claimants. The transaction has drawn objections from four federal agencies — the Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The government said that the deal violates U.S. bankruptcy law because it provides payments to some of the company's creditors, including the opioid claimants, while federal government agencies and other creditors "have been singled out to recover nothing." In its objection, the government agencies called the proposed sale "an abuse of the bankruptcy system that is plainly unlawful and should be rejected by this court." Additionally, the court filing notes, the Department of Justice is pursuing billions of dollars in claims against Endo tied to alleged tax debts, overpayments for the company's medications by the government, and its ongoing criminal investigation into the company's opioid marketing practices.

SVB Financial Group, the former parent of Silicon Valley Bank, is closing in on a deal to sell its venture-capital and credit-investment arm out of bankruptcy, the Wall Street Journal reported. Two front-runners are vying in the bidding process for SVB Capital: a duo of Anthony Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital and Atlas Merchant Capital, and San Francisco private-equity firm Vector Capital. A court decision on a winner is expected in the next few weeks. The business could fetch anywhere between $250 million and $500 million, the people said, cautioning that a transaction still isn’t guaranteed and would need to be reviewed by the creditors’ committee too. Bankers at Centerview Partners have been advising the parent company on the process. In March, Silicon Valley Bank failed and was taken over by regulators, kicking off a mini-banking crisis that later took down Signature Bank and First Republic. SVB Financial Group filed for chapter 11 protection in New York bankruptcy court, paving the way for a sale of its assets after the technology-focused lender at the core of its business was seized by regulators.

Yellow Corp. received U.S. bankruptcy court approval on Friday to sell its vehicle fleet by October, while continuing to market its real estate assets, which have already received a $1.525 billion bid, Reuters reported. The freight shipping company, which went bankrupt in August after a protracted labor dispute, owns approximately 12,000 trucks and 35,000 trailers, according to its bankruptcy court filings. Yellow has set an Oct. 13 bid deadline for those assets. Hundreds of buyers have already expressed interest and signed non-disclosure agreements, and some have begun conducting on-site inspections, Yellow attorney Allyson Smith told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Craig Goldblatt at a court hearing in Wilmington, Delaware. "The sale process is well underway at this point," Smith said. Yellow intends to conduct an auction for the vehicles by Oct 18 and seek court approval for the vehicle sale on Oct. 27.

Lordstown Motor Company has extended the deadline for bids to purchase its assets in the bankruptcy court, wfmj.com reported. The company quietly filed the motion on September 12th, extending the deadline for others to make bids on its assets from September 8th until September 18th, and extending other deadlines in their bidding procedures by between one and two weeks. The filing sets the new date for closing of all asset sales at October 31st, a week later than the original closing date of October 24th. LMC began the process of selling its assets after declaring chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware back in June.

Private less-than-truckload carrier Estes Express Lines’ new bid of $1.525 billion for Yellow’s terminals is now the front-runner, court documents revealed on Wednesday, Freight Waves reported. A filing in a Delaware bankruptcy court showed the carrier entered a stalking horse offer eclipsing the $1.5 billion bid made by rival Old Dominion Freight Line. Estes started the bidding war in mid-August when it made a $1.3 billion offer. The motion showed Yellow has designated the Estes offer as the best so far and requested the court to rule on the matter by Sept. 22 to avoid the risk of it being withdrawn. The new bid exceeds all amounts owed to secured creditors. “We are pleased to have been designated as the real estate stalking horse bidder,” a representative from Estes told FreightWaves. “We believe our proposed transaction is mutually beneficial to both Estes and the Yellow bankruptcy estate. We look forward to participating in this process and working collaboratively with the parties in the case and appreciate everyone’s efforts to date.” Estes’ offer also includes “substantially below market” bid protections. It provides a maximum of $9.1 million in total, including a $7.5 million breakup fee and expense reimbursement up to $1.6 million. Read more.

In related news, Yellow paid bonuses totaling about $4.6 million to eight current and two former executives in the weeks before the company went bankrupt with plans to liquidate, according to corporate disclosures in Delaware bankruptcy court. The figure is higher than it would have been had Yellow managed to avoid a sudden bankruptcy filing, Bloomberg News reported. Of the bonuses disbursed, nearly $2 million paid on July 14 were approved by Yellow’s board in June — when the company was in trouble, but before it was considering filing for bankruptcy, according to the person. Yellow’s public feud with a union representing much of its workforce escalated days later when a strike notice prompted the company’s customers to take their business elsewhere, Yellow has said. The remaining bonuses paid on July 31 became necessary, then, as Yellow planned for a bankruptcy filing that would be used to repay creditors and wind down, according to the person, who asked not to be named discussing private deliberations. The company’s fleet of trailers, trucking terminals and other assets — all of which would need to be sold quickly and at the highest prices possible — had previously been valued at roughly $2.1 billion. A fire sale could seriously reduce the prices they fetched. Read more.

More than three years after filing for bankruptcy protection amid mounting claims of child sex abuse by local clergy, the Archdiocese of New Orleans is preparing to sell off seven properties — including the shuttered Sacred Heart of Jesus Church, the St. Jude Community Center and the Catholic Bookstore Uptown — as a way to generate cash that could be used to help settle those claims, NOLA.com reported. In court documents filed this week, the archdiocese is seeking court approval to hire commercial real estate broker The McEnery Company to market the properties. If sold for their proposed asking prices, the properties would generate nearly $10.4 million for the local Roman Catholic Church. That’s likely a drop in the bucket relative to the cost of the bankruptcy process and the claims an estimated 500 or so abuse victims are seeking. Attorneys fees and other costs of the bankruptcy process have already totaled some $25 million, while the total amount of money victims are seeking has yet to be tabulated. It’s also still unclear how many victims will be allowed to file claims because of a 2021 state law that has extended the window to allowing alleged victims of clergy sex abuse to file suit. Until those questions are resolved, the chapter 11 reorganization plan cannot be finalized. Selling off the properties, however, is a first step. “The Archdiocese of New Orleans has stated since filing for chapter 11 reorganization that we anticipated property sales would be part of the proceedings,” archdiocese spokesperson Sarah McDonald said.

VanMoof, the Dutch e-bike maker that gained a zealous following but declared bankruptcy last month, has been acquired by Lavoie, an upscale electric scooter company, the firms announced on Thursday, the New York Times reported. Riders of the expensive and technologically advanced VanMoof bikes were left in limbo by the company’s bankruptcy, because the machines are built from proprietary parts that only the company made and many of the bikes’ functions are linked to a smartphone app that runs on the company’s servers. Despite the buzz around the brand, VanMoof had run into financial problems that led to a production backlog and monthslong waits for sales and repairs. But riders will not be completely out of limbo under the new ownership. “What they can’t expect in the first couple of weeks is definitive answers to the problems,” said Nick Fry, the chairman of McLaren Applied, the British motorsports technology company that owns Lavoie. The price of the acquisition was not disclosed, but Mr. Fry said Lavoie would spend “tens of millions” on the transaction as well as in investments over the coming months to “rectify some of the challenges we face.” One of the new owner’s priorities, he added, is improving the availability of parts and repairs, something that had become increasingly difficult for VanMoof owners. Regular bike shops could not — or sometimes would not — fix the bikes. Mr. Fry said he wanted other bike mechanics to be able to fix VanMoof bikes and maybe make the bikes available for sale in retailers other than the shops owned by the brand. Another priority, he said, is to address some of the reliability issues that plagued the bikes.