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Twin Cities Archdiocese Lists $45 Million in Assets

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The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis listed more than $45 million in assets and about $16 million in liabilities in a compulsory financial report filed with a federal court, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The reported assets include more than $11 million in real estate, the majority of which is tied to the archbishop's residence and chancery building, which are collectively valued at about $6.3 million. The value of some of the archdiocese's other real estate, including the Cathedral of St. Paul, were listed as "unknown" and thus not factored into the total.

Revel Seeks ACR Energy Penalties as It Plans to Cut Power

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Revel AC Inc., the bankrupt Atlantic City, New Jersey, casino owner, asked a judge to penalize its power provider for planning to cut off electricity on Feb. 5, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Revel said in court papers yesterday that it received a letter from ACR Energy Partners LLC over the weekend announcing its plan to terminate service, which the casino company called a violation of the Bankruptcy Code’s automatic stay. ACR Energy should be fined $10 million for shutting off the power, plus $1 million a day until the juice is restored, Revel said in the filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Camden, N.J.

Lehman Brothers Raises Estimate of Cash for Creditors to $90.6 Billion

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The team unwinding Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. boosted its estimate of how much cash it expects to bring in for creditors to $90.6 billion, buoyed primarily by a settlement with Lehman Brothers Bankhaus A.G., the German arm of Lehman’s investment-banking operation, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The new projection represents a $1.8 billion increase over an estimate late last summer of $88.8 billion, according to the company’s most recent cash flow estimates, filed on Friday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. Lehman Brothers officially emerged from chapter 11 protection in March 2012 and began paying back creditors the following month. Although Lehman is out of bankruptcy protection, its case is far from over and will likely continue for years as a bankruptcy team continues to liquidate Lehman’s assets. Lehman said that the wind-down of the business “may extend beyond 2018.” As a result of the gains on its real estate, derivatives and private-equity investments, Lehman Brothers still has $13.8 billion on its balance sheet after making six distributions of $66.1 billion to creditors. Lehman paid out $9 billion to third-party creditors in October.

Bankrupt Reichhold Unloads Underfunded Pension Plan on PBGC

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The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. is about to take over Reichhold Inc.’s retirement plan, which covers almost 4,500 current and former workers at the maker of polyester resins, saying that it’s underfunded by $97.4 million, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. A bankruptcy judge in Delaware last month approved the sale of Reichhold’s business, partly in exchange for $46 million in junior secured debt. After the sale is completed this month, the Durham, N.C.-based company won’t have any active operations. In October, the PBGC started the process of terminating the pension plan, whose benefits were frozen in December 2012. Reichhold arranged a Feb. 23 court hearing in Wilmington, Del., to seek approval of an agreement terminating the plan and handing the assets over to the PBGC. Under the agreement, Reichhold doesn’t acknowledge the accuracy of the PBGC’s underfunding estimate. The company said that no prospective buyers of the business would have assumed the pension plan and its liabilities. Including secured debt that was forgiven, the lenders paid $146.7 million. The junior noteholders will take over non-bankrupt affiliates through consensual foreclosure, using a sale structure laid out when the chapter 11 reorganization started last year.

House Hearing Tomorrow to Examine the “Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency Act”

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The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law will hold a hearing tomorrow at 1 p.m. ET to examine H.R. 526, the “Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency (FACT) Act of 2015.” The bill was introduced on January 26 and looks to amend the Bankruptcy Code to require the public disclosure by trusts established under section 524(g) of such title, of quarterly reports that contain detailed information regarding the receipt and disposition of claims for injuries based on exposure to asbestos. For more information on the hearing, including the witness list, please click here: http://judiciary.house.gov/index.cfm/hearings?ID=DCC41737-0D2C-487A-913…
 
To read the full bill text of H.R. 526, please click here: https://www.congress.gov/114/bills/hr526/BILLS-114hr526ih.pdf

Caesars Backs Independent Bankruptcy Examiner to Probe Transfers

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Caesars Entertainment Corp. supports demands by creditors for an independent examiner to review recent deals by the casino company's bankrupt operating unit, Reuters reported yesterday. Caesars' operating unit plans to cut its debt to $8.6 billion from $18.4 billion. The operator of 38 casinos has blamed a saturated U.S. gambling market and sluggish economic recovery for its financial problems. Creditors led by the Appaloosa Management hedge fund have said that Caesars "plundered" billions of dollars in choice assets from the operating unit, including Planet Hollywood and The Linq in Las Vegas. The creditors asked for the appointment of an examiner to investigate the operating company's deals dating back to 2010. The parent company said in a filing with Chicago's U.S. Bankruptcy Court on Sunday that an examiner would confirm the property transfers were fair and provided billions of dollars in cash to the operating unit.

Fugitive Treasure Hunter Tommy Thompson Arrested in Florida

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Tommy Thompson’s bizarre odyssey took another twist this week after federal officials arrested the fugitive treasure hunter in Florida, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Thompson is the engineer and undersea explorer who in the 1980s found the wreck of the SS Central America, a U.S. mail steamer that went down off the North Carolina coast in 1857 with 18 tons of gold. Within a few years, Mr. Thompson had recovered more than three tons of gold, silver and other treasures, estimated to be worth at least $100 million. He’s been fighting with former partners and investors ever since. In 2012, a federal judge in Ohio issued arrest warrants for Thompson, who had skipped hearings for a civil case pending since 2006. Creditors of Thompson’s Columbus Exploration LLC, one of whom claimed to be owed nearly $2 million in legal work, sought to force the company into bankruptcy in early 2013 while Thompson was on the run. A couple of months later, a receiver was ordered to take control of the Columbus Exploration and sister company Recovery LP. A judge tossed the cases that September.

New Jersey's Revel Casino Sale Delayed While Judge Reviews Appeal

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A U.S. federal appeals court has delayed the sale of the shuttered Revel Casino in Atlantic City pending an appeal by a company that ran its nightclub and boardwalk dance club, Reuters reported on Saturday. The order, issued late on Friday by Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Court Judge Thomas Ambro, gives attorneys for Revel until Tuesday to respond to the appeal filed by IDEA Boardwalk, Llc. The company, along with several restaurants which had also leased space inside the casino, had lost a challenge to the sale in a Jan. 21 federal court. The sale to Florida developer Glen Straub, who bought Revel in bankruptcy court for $95.4 million, was expected to be completed by Feb. 7. The nightclub appealed that order, claiming the sale could cost it some $16 million it had invested to build bars, bathrooms and sound systems as part of its 25-year lease.

MF Global Seeks Deadline to Repay Hard-to-Locate Customers

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The trustee unwinding MF Global Inc. wants to establish procedures to pay back more than $10 million to about 1,400 former customers, the only ones yet to be fully repaid, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. In a Wednesday filing with U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, lawyers for trustee James W. Giddens said that some customers at issue haven't returned the necessary forms. In other cases, checks sent either were returned as undeliverable or expired without being cashed.

Lehman Trustee Seeks to Pay Another $2.2 Billion

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The official winding down Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s brokerage business said yesterday that he plans to return another $2.2 billion in cash to former employees and other creditors, more than six years after the investment bank's collapse, Dow Jones <em>Daily Bankruptcy Review</em> reported today. <b>James W. Giddens</b>, the court-appointed trustee winding down Lehman's broker-dealer, said in a filing yesterday that he was seeking court approval to make another distribution to unsecured creditors. Combined with the $3.7 billion he has already paid, the brokerage's creditors will have recovered about 27 cents on the dollar.