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International Shipholding Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection yesterday, unable to sell off assets quickly enough to hold its lenders at bay, the Wall Street Journal reported today. For more than a year, the Mobile, Ala., company has been negotiating with lenders for time to fix its overloaded balance sheet. The company has lined up $16 million in bankruptcy financing to support its efforts to restructure under court protection. International Shipholding has been reining in and selling off businesses, such as its dry bulk carrying unit, hoping to reorganize around the most profitable lines. At the end of first quarter 2016, sales and payments had chopped funded debt to $117 million, down from $243 million at the end of 2014, court papers say. Asset sales continue, but they aren’t bringing in the money International Shipholding needs to comply with liquidity covenants with lenders. The company lost $8.4 million in the first quarter of 2016, following a loss of nearly $180 million for the year ended Dec. 31, 2015.

Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. (CEOC) has broadened the support for its $18 billion debt-restructuring plan, adding certain junior bondholders to the list of top creditors that have pledged to back the proposal, the Wall Street Journal reported today. CEOC said yesterday that holders of about 37 percent of its $5.2 billion in second-lien bond debt have signed a restructuring support agreement with the bankrupt casino operator and its corporate parent, which isn’t in chapter 11. CEOC has previously reached similar deals with its parent, senior bank lenders, senior bondholders and unsecured creditors. For the restructuring support agreement with the second-lien bondholders to take effect, CEOC said it must secure the support of creditors holding more than 50.1 percent of that debt. A prior support agreement with a minority of second-lien bondholders crumbled last year when CEOC couldn’t meet that threshold. Other holders of second-lien bond debt have been vocal opponents of CEOC’s restructuring, although CEOC said that it will continue to work toward a consensual plan.

Flying Star’s owners have filed a reorganization plan in bankruptcy court that would allow them to retain control of the restaurant chain they built in exchange for surrendering their own claims against the company and putting up $1.5 million in new capital to pay off creditors, the Albuquerque (N.M.) Journal reported on Saturday. But their creditors are working on their own competing plan that would mean selling the restaurant chain to another local firm. Flying Star owners Jean and Mark Bernstein filed their reorganization plan in court on Friday. Under their plan, the Bernsteins would bid $1.5 million for new shares of stock in the company and continued management. The infusion would allow Flying Star to pay taxes and other priority claims immediately, pay other creditors, like lenders, in full on an installment basis, and pay the unsecured creditors a total of $790,101. That amounts to 21.5 percent of the unsecured creditors’ $3.67 million in claims, according to the filing. The attorney for Flying Star’s unsecured creditors committee said earlier on Friday — before the Bernsteins filed their plan — that he was working on a “competing plan” based on Southwest Brands’ indication that it wanted to buy Flying Star for $2.5 million.