%1

U.S. coal miner Peabody Energy Corp. said that it had emerged from chapter 11 protection and was expected to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange today, Reuters reported. The largest U.S. coal producer filed for bankruptcy protection in April 2016, after a sharp drop in coal prices left it unable to service debt of $10.1 billion. The company said that it had reduced its debt by more than $5 billion since March 2016. Peabody will focus on reducing debt, targeting high-return investments and returning cash to shareholders over time, Chief Executive Officer Glenn Kellow said.

Principal Financial Group Inc. accused the managers of Liongate Capital Management LLP of hiding investments with Bernie Madoff while negotiating to sell half of their London hedge fund to Principal, Bloomberg News reported today. Founders Randall Dillard and Jeff Holland, and Head of Research Benjamin Funk sold the stake in March 2013 without disclosing secret investments in the largest of several Madoff "feeder funds,” according to legal filings produced by Principal. It may be seeking as much as $66 million in damages in its London lawsuit. Principal said it discovered the investments in late June 2015 after staff opened a locked safe at Liongate’s offices in the Mayfair neighborhood in London, with the help of the safe’s manufacturers. Inside were two files containing purchases spanning almost a decade that included investments in Fairfield Sentry Ltd., a fund linked to Madoff, Principal said. Dillard, Holland and Funk intentionally misled Principal by saying prior to the deal that they had never invested in Madoff funds, the company said in its filings.

SunEdison Inc. sees a possibility for life after bankruptcy even as its unsecured creditors have threatened to upend a reorganization plan, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The clean energy giant, which said after its April bankruptcy that it was toggling between a wind-down or a reorganization, announced the rough terms of a restructuring on Tuesday. Its unsecured creditors have said that they intend to dispute a settlement that’s key to the plan at an upcoming trial however, raising questions about whether the company added any value for its business or lenders after a year in Chapter 11. The SunEdison plan, which comes after the piecemeal sale of more than $1 billion of assets including wind and solar farms, would split the company into a new, publicly traded unit and a trust to pursue lawsuits. It’s ability to pull off the reorganizing still hangs in the balance, hinging on Brookfield Asset Management Inc.’s deals to buy its two yieldcos, which in turn rests on a settlement that still needs court approval.

Texas regulators yesterday agreed to scuttle NextEra Energy Inc.’s $18 billion purchase of Energy Future Holdings Corp., finding that the deal was not in the public interest, Reuters reported. The three-member Public Utility Commission of Texas found that the deal, a key component of Energy Future's plan to exit an approximately three-year bankruptcy, placed too much risk on ratepayers, its members said in a public meeting Thursday. Energy Future is the majority owner of Oncor, the state's largest power network. The commission said that it was concerned about the debt of the combined company, the independence of Oncor's board and payments to the parent company at the expense of Oncor.