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Citing “severe financial distress,” American Hospice Management Holdings has filed for bankruptcy protection so it can sell its money-losing business in the next six weeks, CFO.com reported today. The provider of hospice care in seven states has been seeking a buyer since March 2013. In filing chapter 11 on Sunday, it said that an expedited sale through a bankruptcy proceeding “would best preserve the underlying value of its operations and maximize the value of [its] assets” for the benefit of creditors and shareholders. Hospice Partners of America has made a stalking-horse bid to acquire American Hospice’s operations in Virginia and Texas. Additional bidders will be sought for the operations in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, and Oklahoma, and the sale process must close by April 30, according to the company.

Central Beef Inc., which operated as Florida's largest beef processing plant before recently suspending production, filed for bankruptcy protection after it couldn't find a buyer willing to keep it open, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Officials who put Central Beef's 214-worker plant into chapter 11 protection on Monday blamed several years of sales declines within the slaughterhouse industry, leading revenue to fall 9 percent to $164.3 million in the last two years. Central Beef officials have stopped buying cattle and are grinding remaining meat while they continue to search for buyers for the company's 107,630-square-foot manufacturing operations in Florida.

Republic Airways Holdings Inc. won permission to use the bankruptcy process to return what it says are some of its less attractive airplanes and engines, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The company can turn over six Embraer SA E145 regional jets and three engines to Citibank NA, an agent to an outstanding loan, Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane said yesterday. It also obtained permission to reject the lease for a seventh Embraer plane. Citibank said that the aircraft or engines at stake in the current motion are collateral under a revolving credit facility that now has a balance of $23 million. Judge Lane said that Citibank, which had complained that some of the aircraft had been separated from their engines, will have to bring legal claims later if it can’t work out a resolution.

Emerald Oil Inc. filed for chapter 11 protection yesterday, a month after the oil explorer and producer warned that it could go bankrupt as it remained in default with creditors, Reuters reported. The Denver, Colo.-based company joins a string of energy-related firms to seek court protection from creditors after oil prices plummeted since mid-2014. Emerald listed assets in the range of $10 million to $50 million, and liabilities of between $100 million and $500 million. Read more.

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After stock investors drove down its share price last week, Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. finds its fate in the hands of its debtholders, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Valeant said today that it would begin talks with its loan investors, as it faces a potential default on its debt if it can’t file its 2015 annual report, or 10-K, by late April. A deal is considered highly likely, investors and analysts said, because most debt investors still believe Valeant is capable of paying the interest on its roughly $30 billion debt load, even if the Canadian company doesn’t realize shareholders’ dreams of a rebound. Shares have lost about 90 percent since their August high, partly out of fear that equity investors would be left with nothing if there were a default.

Jumio Inc., a venture-backed identity verification business whose customers include United Airlines Inc. and Airbnb Inc., filed for bankruptcy yesterday with a plan to sell itself to Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The chapter 11 filing was authorized by the company’s board on Sunday, according to the resolution filed with the court. Saverin, who also is the main creditor of Jumio, is offering to acquire Jumio out of bankruptcy for $22.7 million, much of which is composed of debt forgiveness in addition to $3.2 million in cash. His bid would be subject to rival offers through a bankruptcy court auction process.

The Illinois attorney general has asked Peabody Energy Corp. in a letter to explain how it would cover $92 million in future cleanup costs in the state if the company sought bankruptcy protection, Reuters reported yesterday. Peabody, the country's largest coal producer, said in a regulatory filing last week that it may have to seek bankruptcy protection, citing poor economies in countries that import coal and other factors weighing on the coal industry. In an emailed statement, Peabody declined to comment on the specifics of the letter but said, "We see our land restoration as an essential part of the mining process, and take great pride in the work that we do." If the company did seek bankruptcy protection, a judge would decide how to prioritize liabilities like $92 million in future cleanup costs in Illinois that are not guaranteed by cash, bonds or other securities.

Bankruptcy Judge Mark S. Wallace yesterday approved the sale of the Orange County Register and the Riverside Press-Enterprise to Digital First Media, the Los Angeles Times reported today. Digital First’s $52.3 million offer for the assets of Freedom Communications prevailed over a higher bid of $56 million from Tribune Publishing, the parent company of the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union-Tribune, which faced an antitrust battle in its effort to build a media empire stretching from the Mexican border to Los Angeles. If the deal closed, Tribune would have controlled 98 percent of English-language local daily newspapers for sale in Orange County, the government said. In Riverside County, Calif., Tribune would have owned four of the top five English-language newspapers by circulation, according to the department.