Compass Partners LLC won a bankruptcy auction to acquire the Big Apple Circus, setting the stage for the show’s possible return to New York City for the holiday season, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Compass Partners beat a handful of competitors at this week’s auction with a $1.3 million bid, according to court papers filed yesterday. The sale, which must be approved by a bankruptcy judge, is for Big Apple Circus’s name and most of its circus equipment. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York will review Compass’s bid at a Feb. 14 hearing.
Almost three months after securing bondholder support for a prepackaged bankruptcy proceeding, Ultrapetrol Bahamas Ltd., a company that floats energy boats throughout South America, filed for chapter 11 protection on Feb. 6 in the bankruptcy court in White Plains, N.Y., American Lawyer reported. The Nassau, Bahamas-based company lists $776.58 million in assets against $565.95 million in liabilities in its bankruptcy petition. Ultrapetrol, in a tally of its 40 largest unsecured creditors, also owes money to law firms in the U.K. and Paraguay. Gateley, a British firm that in 2015 began trading publicly, is listed as being owed $311,237 by the debtor, which owes another $70,950 for legal services to Paraguay’s Palacios, Prono & Talavera. Ultrapetrol is an industrial shipping company that specializes in river barges that move petroleum products. The company, whose general counsel is Argentine lawyer Diego Alvarez-Blanco, does business in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. In court papers, Ultrapetrol blamed a liquidity crisis caused by “deteriorating market conditions affecting the energy and natural resource industries,” as precipitating its bankruptcy case. Read more.
A U.S. federal appeals court dismissed an emergency appeal by opponents of Peabody Energy Corp.’s reorganization plan yesterday saying that any complaints should be lodged after the plan is confirmed by the bankruptcy court, Reuters reported. An ad hoc committee of dissenting creditors had said that a key piece of Peabody's proposal to exit chapter 11 protection violates U.S. bankruptcy law by prematurely requiring creditors to promise to support it. A bankruptcy panel of the U.S. Circuit of Appeals for the Eighth Court did not address the merits of the motion. Peabody hopes to emerge from bankruptcy in April, a year after its Chapter 11 filing with over $8 billion of debt. Its bankruptcy confirmation trial is scheduled for March 16.
A group of U.S. creditors appealed a court order allowing Hanjin Shipping Co. to sell one of its key remaining assets and to send the proceeds to South Korea, likely beyond the U.S. creditors’ reach, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The creditors, a group of shipping container and trucking chassis providers, on Tuesday filed papers asking the U.S. District Court in New Jersey to revisit a bankruptcy judge’s decision to approve the $78 million sale of Hanjin’s stake in a Long Beach, Calif., container terminal operator. Last month, the creditors lost a bid to keep the sale proceeds in the U.S. The proceeds will instead be administered by a court in South Korea, where the U.S. creditors say their rights and prospects of being repaid will be diminished. The appeal comes as a court in South Korea, where Hanjin’s assets and bankruptcy proceedings have been largely consolidated, has moved to end any efforts to help get the company back on its feet, opting instead for a total liquidation. A final ruling from the South Korean court regarding Hanjin’s fate is slated for Feb. 17.
Stemtech International, a formerly high-flying Pembroke Pines, Fla.-based dietary supplement maker, has filed for chapter 11 protection as it battles a former supplier and seeks Supreme Court review of a $1.6 million judgment from a 2008 copyright infringement case, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported. The multilevel marketing company says on its website that its products help stem cells grow and circulate in the body, maintaining and repairing organs and tissues and “providing you with an unmatched level of wellness, both inside and out.” Stemtech submitted the filing on Feb. 2 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Fort Lauderdale. The company remains in operation and has not laid off any of its employees, bankruptcy attorney Michael Seese said yesterday.
United Road Towing Inc., the nation’s largest towing company, has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, along with more than two dozen affiliates, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. United Road is going up for sale in bankruptcy, with an auction planned before the end of March. Owned mostly by Medley Capital Corp. and Milestone Partners II LP, United Road said its decision to file for bankruptcy was driven largely by nonfinancial reasons, including a lawsuit involving the competition rights of former executives and a class-action case from people whose cars were towed without their consent. Diving prices for scrap metal and lack of capital for marketing and equipment purchases also contributed to the decision, court papers say. United Road lost the class action when it went to trial in 2015, and the company filed for bankruptcy protection just as the $5 million judgment was scheduled to become final. The chapter 11 filing will halt efforts to collect the judgment.
Opponents of Peabody Energy Corp's reorganization plan have filed an emergency appeal against a key piece of the coal producer's proposal they say violates U.S. bankruptcy law by prematurely requiring creditors to promise to support it, Reuters reported yesterday. At the heart of creditors' complaints are the terms of a $1.5 billion private recapitalization that Peabody has proposed as part of a plan to slash $5 billion of debt and exit chapter 11 protection. The plan by the world's largest private-sector coal company could provide lucrative returns for early subscribers. In order to sign up for the private offering, creditors had to support Peabody's broader reorganization plan, a complex and lengthy document, within days of its publication on Dec. 22 and almost a month before it went to bankruptcy court for approval. Bankruptcy Judge Barry Schermer approved the plan on Jan. 26, overruling objections from a range of parties and opening the door for Peabody to officially begin seeking creditor votes. In a filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on Friday, an ad hoc committee of dissenting creditors said Peabody "improperly" forced the majority of creditors to commit their votes in favor of the plan well before it received court approval.
The Mavericks surfing competition, the nation’s premier big wave event, has been canceled this year after organizers were sued by its sponsor and filed for bankruptcy, event representatives said Friday, the New York Times reported. Held half a mile off Half Moon Bay in Northern California, the annual one-day contest features two dozen professional surfers competing on one of the world’s most dangerous surf breaks, where waves can reach 60 feet. The event, officially known as Titans of Mavericks, takes place between November and March after a 48-hour notice is given when conditions are right, aligning clear weather and majestic swells. The cancellation comes one week after Red Bull, Mavericks’ broadcaster and only sponsor, filed a lawsuit against the event’s promotional and management groups, Cartel Management and Titans of Mavericks, for breach of contract, seeking $400,000. In its bankruptcy filings, Cartel faces claims of about $1.9 million and Titans of Mavericks faces more than $776,335, according to court records filed on Tuesday.
