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Offshore oil exploration company Stone Energy Corp., which filed for bankruptcy last week, has agreed to increase the potential recovery for shareholders in its chapter 11 plan, Reuters reported yesterday. On Dec 14, the Lafayette, La.-based company joined a long list of oil producers that have filed for bankruptcy amid a two-year slump in prices. Stone plans to use chapter 11 to eliminate about $1.2 billion in debt by transferring control to its noteholders. Stone's two largest shareholders, Thomas Satterfield of Birmingham, Alabama, and Raymond Hyer of Tampa, Florida, have attacked the company's chapter 11 plan and requested the formation of an official equity committee. According to court papers filed yesterday, the pair have dropped that demand and are now backing the plan of reorganization, which Stone revised to increase the post-bankruptcy stake reserved for shareholders to 5 percent from 4 percent. Read more. 

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Caesars Entertainment Corp. said yesterday that lenders to its bankrupt operating unit have moved to potentially terminate a pact to support the unit's $18 billion restructuring, Dow Jones Newswires reported. The lenders, owed $5.4 billion, cited the currently "unacceptable" terms of the new debt they are slated to receive under the restructuring plan as the reason for looking to consider breaking off their support for the plan, Caesars said yesterday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. If Caesars and its Caesars Entertainment Operating Co., or CEOC, unit don't address the problem by Dec. 24, then the lenders could officially terminate their support pact, the SEC filing said.

A New Mexico diocese is a step closer to resolving its bankruptcy case after a federal judge rejected a claim that had stalled the proceedings, the Associated Press reported yesterday. The Gallup Independent reports that the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament filed a claim against the Diocese of Gallup as it was concluding its chapter 11 reorganization case. Attorneys for the diocese say the claim wasn't filed in a timely matter. The Sisters' attorney says that the organization did not know of the diocese's bankruptcy case until December 2015, more than two years after its chapter 11 petition was filed, but the attorneys for the diocese say the Sisters were sent legal notices at the time the claim was filed. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma concluded a Monday hearing by disallowing the claim by the Sisters.

Core Entertainment Inc.’s lenders aren’t happy with the outcome of the “American Idol” producer’s bankruptcy restructuring, the Wall Street Journal reported today. In a lawsuit filed on Monday in U.S. Superior Court in Los Angeles, a trustee for Core’s pre-bankruptcy lenders accused the production company’s private-equity backer Apollo Global Management as well as 21st Century Fox Inc., of scheming to strip the company of its cash and most valuable assets while leaving them holding the bag. A spokesman for the trustee said yesterday that the trust was formed to pursue claims to the benefit of all pre-bankruptcy general unsecured creditors. Core Media Group, the reorganized entity that emerged from bankruptcy and is still in business, isn’t a plaintiff in the lawsuit. Among Core’s unsecured creditors are pre-bankruptcy lenders including Crestview Media Investors LP as well as Tennenbaum Capital Partners LLC, Bayside Capital Inc, Hudson Bay Capital Management LP, Credit Suisse Asset Management LLC, CIT Bank NA and Oaktree Value Opportunities Fund Holdings LP.