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U.S. fashion jewelry and accessories budget retailer Charming Charlie LLC is seeking to hire a financial adviser to help find relief from its debt burden, Reuters reported on Wednesday. Such a move would come after the 12-year-old chain failed to establish sufficient scale to compete in a highly fragmented market that has been tested by the rise of internet shopping and rapidly changing consumer tastes. Charming Charlie has interviewed investment banks in recent weeks to hire an adviser that would lead a restructuring process to help address its approximately $200 million debt burden. Charming Charlie, founded in 2004 by entrepreneur Charlie Chanaratsopon, is known for its color-coordinated display of jewelry, handbags and apparel. Its early success put Chanaratsopon, chief executive officer and majority owner of the company, on the Forbes America's Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40 list last year, which pegged his net worth at $425 million. Charming Charlie has had investments from private equity firms TSG Consumer Partners and Hancock Park Associates. The Houston-based retailer has about 350 stores across the United States and internationally, including in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the Philippines. Read more. 

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A Hanjin Shipping attorney told a federal court last Tuesday that it has virtually no assets in the U.S. to compensate several retailers, logistics providers, insurance companies and other claimants who fear the loss of claim rights if the court recognizes the carriers’ South Korean bankruptcy case, JOC.com reported on Wednesday. The claimants, in papers filed in U.S. District Bankruptcy court in New Jersey fear that their rights will be impaired, or lost if the court approves Hanjin’s request for Chapter 15 status. Approval would mean U.S. bankruptcy courts recognize the Korean bankruptcy proceeding, enabling the carrier to take certain actions in the U.S. to assist the case overseas. But a hearing on Nov. 22, which was scheduled to hear the case, was adjourned after Hanjin attorneys said eight objections had been filed, more than expected, and they needed additional time to prepare for them. The objections will now be heard Dec. 13. Read more. (Subscription required.) 

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More wreckage from Anguilla’s offshore banking troubles has washed up in a U.S. bankruptcy court, with the filing of a chapter 11 proceeding for Caribbean Commercial Investment Bank Ltd., the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. Tuesday’s chapter 11 filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York came from William Tacon, a court-appointed administrator of the Anguillan bank. Earlier this year Tacon also placed the offshore private bank and trust operation owned by the failed National Bank of Anguilla under bankruptcy protection in New York. Much of the legal action is taking place in Anguilla, where the fate of the homegrown banking system is a matter of great public interest. The money, however, is in New York, Tacon says, and that is why he’s using the investigatory powers of U.S. bankruptcy. In both bankruptcy proceedings, Tacon has taken issue with the handling of the troubled banks by local regulators. He is seeking U.S. court aid in tracking and reclaiming funds he says belong to depositors.

U.S. coal producer Peabody Energy Corp. said on Wednesday that it is closer to exiting bankruptcy, with a debt dispute between creditors fizzling as a recent increase in coal prices boosts their chances for recovery, Reuters reported. Peabody filed for chapter 11 protection in April, after a sharp decline in coal prices left it unable to service $10 billion of debt. A creditor fight launched by some of Wall Street's most litigious investment funds, Aurelius Capital Management and Elliott Management, put the reorganization on hold. Seven months later, prices for coal used to generate power and make steel have surged, particularly in Australia, where Peabody expanded with the $5.1 billion acquisition of Australia's Macarthur Coal in 2011. The surge means that secured lenders such as Citibank are now likely to recoup their investment, making a legal battle over how to treat long-term debt in calculating Peabody's assets largely irrelevant. On Wednesday, Peabody said the company was working to resolve the dispute that pitted its secured lenders against unsecured creditors, including distressed debt hedge funds Aurelius and Elliott, who were seeking a larger share of Peabody's assets in the reorganization.

Telecommunications company Avaya Inc. is weighing a chapter 11 bankruptcy filing and nearing a deal to sell its call-center software unit in an effort to pare its heavy debt load after years of losses, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. The company, which was taken private by buyout firms Silver Lake and TPG in 2007, could file for chapter 11 protection as soon as next month. The filing would likely come after it reaches a deal to sell the call-center software business. Clayton Dubilier & Rice LLC is among the potential buyers that participated in the most-recent round of bidding for the unit, which could fetch around $4 billion. Avaya could use the proceeds of the sale to repay some of its senior debt, while other creditors could swap debt for ownership in a reorganized company upon its emergence from bankruptcy. The company’s long-term debt stood at around $6 billion as of June 30, according to a regulatory filing.

Big Apple Circus has received expressions of interest in buying the organization that is plying its way through bankruptcy proceedings, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Circus’s lawyer, Chris Updike, told a court yesterday that he has received letters of interest from potential buyers, and the circus is open to receiving offers that would allow the show to go on. Updike said that the nonprofit organization is looking to secure an auctioneer. At the hearing, Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane expressed hope Big Apple Circus, which filed for chapter 11 this week after an emergency fundraising drive came up short, would be able to find a buyer. The judge said that Big Apple Circus could tap a zero-interest loan provided by Circus’s directors that would pay the bills while a team of professionals looks for a buyer for the organization’s intellectual property and equipment, including its big-top tent.