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General Motors’ pre-tax profit jumped 37 percent to $3.1 billion in the third quarter, fueled by strong truck and SUV sales in North America and a solid performance in China, despite weakening demand in the world’s largest car market, MarketWatch.com reported yesterday. The results do not include $1.5 billion in one-time government fines and other costs to settle claims related to last year’s deadly ignition-switch recall. Overall net income fell 1.4 percent to $1.36 billion. In North America, GM posted an 11.8 percent operating margin in North America — its ninth straight quarter of improved profits.

The sale of Relativity Media LLC’s television unit closed on Tuesday, freeing its leaders from the “distraction” of bankruptcy, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. Tom Forman, chief executive of Relativity Television, said that the studio behind MTV’s “Catfish” and other shows is poised for “supercharged” growth now that it has been spun off from bankrupt Relativity Media via a sale to a group of hedge funds. Relativity Media filed for chapter 11 protection in July on the heels of a string of box office flops and a mounting debt load that had reached $1.2 billion. But the TV studio was widely considered the most attractive of Relativity’s assets when, after filing for bankruptcy, the company announced it was putting itself on the auction block.

Cardiac Science Corp., a manufacturer of automatic heart defibrillators, filed for chapter 11 protection to sell its business after a cash crunch threatened its ability to pay employees and vendors, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The Wisconsin-based company headed to court yesterday to request immediate access to $4.98 million of the $9 million bankruptcy loan it negotiated with its current lender, a fund associated with Los Angeles-based Aurora Capital Group. Cardiac ultimately would like to execute an exchange deal with Aurora whereby the fund would repay $6.5 million in senior debt owed to HDFC Bank, and forgive the $9 million bankruptcy loan plus another $65 million owed to Aurora in exchange for ownership of the company. Cardiac has requested permission to test that offer during an auction on Dec. 17.

Caesars Entertainment's bankrupt operating unit can keep exclusive control over its bankruptcy until March 15, Bankruptcy Judge Benjamin Goldgar ruled yesterday, giving the casino group its second extension for filing for chapter 11 protection in January, Reuters reported today. The casino operating unit, CEOC, presented a new bankruptcy reorganization plan earlier this month that has the support of creditors holding $12 billion of debt, amounting to about two thirds of the total $18 billion debt pile. The exclusivity was due to expire on Nov. 15, but CEOC asked for another four months to persuade junior bondholders to agree to the plan, which splits its business into an operating company and a real estate investment trust.

Metal-parts manufacturer LB Steel LLC filed for bankruptcy, hit with a nearly $30 million judgment in a legal battle over a Chicago airport project that played out during an industry-wide downturn, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Officials who put LB Steel into bankruptcy protection on Sunday said that they plan to look for buyers for the 310-worker company, which operates out of a 450,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in the Chicago suburb of Harvey. Last week, a judge ruled that LB Steel owes $27.5 million to Walsh Construction Co. in a dispute over LB Steel's work on a canopy and curtain wall that was built at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Chicago officials who hired Walsh in 2003 to handle the project later "identified defects in the canopy and curtain wall," according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Chicago.

Millennium Health LLC agreed to pay $256 million to resolve claims that it misrepresented the need for procedures and offered gifts to doctors in exchange for referrals, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The biggest U.S. lab-testing company now plans to file for bankruptcy protection by Nov. 10, enabling it to turn over control of the business to its lenders. The company has given the restructuring proposal to the holders of its $1.8 billion term loan and sent a copy to lawyers at the U.S. Department of Justice who are handling the settlement of the government’s case. Millennium will need to file its chapter 11 petition with a bankruptcy court by Nov. 10, according to copies of resolved cases against the company that were unsealed yesterday.

Club One, a popular downtown Fresno, Calif., casino and restaurant, has filed for bankruptcy, the Fresno Bee reported today. The chapter 11 filing was made on Wednesday by its ownership group, led by Kyle Kirkland, Club One Casino Inc.’s president, who says that the lucrative casino will stay open and continue to pay fees it owes the city. The bankruptcy filing comes after a ruling last week in New York favoring two Fresno residents, former owner Elaine Long and minority owner George Sarantos, who are the casino’s biggest creditors after a 2008 sale. In total, Long and Sarantos are owed nearly $12 million combined, their lawyers said.

Quiksilver Inc. received bankruptcy-court approval Thursday to continue on its preferred path with private equity firm Oaktree Capital Management sponsoring the surf-retailer's restructuring, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The ruling from Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon comes at the end of a two-day hearing on the matter, during which the committee representing unsecured creditors opposed the surfwear retailer's proposed restructuring path and brought to the table fresh bankruptcy financing from Brigade Capital Management. However, Judge Shannon's approval of the Oaktree bankruptcy financing and plan support agreement executed with Oaktree came with some significant changes, made in an effort to create a better opportunity to find another, better deal.

If American Apparel gets the bankruptcy turnaround it envisions, the fashion chain will soon have its most profitable years ever, according to court documents filed on Thursday, Reuters reported. The company projected in a court filing that it would return to profit in 2018, its first money-making year since 2009. By 2020, the company projected a net profit of $23.7 million, well above its previous peak in 2007. The company warned in the court filing that ongoing legal battles with Dov Charney, the founder who was fired as chief executive last year, remained one of the risks to its future. The company accused Charney of orchestrating protests at its headquarters and said that he could undermine the company’s ability to hire staff and executives. Separately on Thursday, American Apparel sought to reassure suppliers and other creditors that they were key to its future, even though they were going to get next to nothing on what the company owes them.