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Relativity Media LLC, the struggling movie studio backed by billionaire Ron Burkle and Chairman Steven Mnuchin, said that lenders including Anchorage Capital Group LLC bought $130 million of its debt, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Anchorage and other existing lenders exercised their right to obtain the holdings from Catalyst Capital Group Inc., according to Ryan Kavanaugh, the studio’s chief executive officer. The Canadian buyout fund previously acquired Relativity’s entire senior debt and provided a $170 million working capital facility, according to Kavanaugh. Relativity’s senior and junior debt and is helping to lead and participate in a restructuring of the studio.

Lawyers for Health Diagnostic Laboratory Inc. are preparing to hold a Sept. 10 auction to sell the Virginia lab's operations, which struggled after health regulators accused the company of paying illegal kickbacks to physicians who send blood samples, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. In a court order signed on Wednesday, Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Huennekens set a Sept. 4 bid deadline for potential buyers interested in the Richmond company, which employs about 645 people who help test for cardiovascular diseases like diabetes. Health Diagnostic Laboratory filed for bankruptcy on June 7, several months after agreeing to pay nearly $50 million to settle civil allegations filed by the U.S. Department of Justice that it paid to doctors who sent patient blood samples. Justice Department officials said the fees were illegal kickbacks; the company has denied wrongdoing.

Despite earlier predictions that the El Paso (Texas) Children's Hospital bankruptcy would be completed this year, consultants and lawyers for the hospital Wednesday asked that deadlines be extended into next year, the El Paso Times reported today. Children's Hospital asked Bankruptcy Judge H. Christopher Mott to double the hospital's "exclusivity" period. If it is granted, Children's Hospital will have the sole right to file a restructuring plan until Jan. 13. Until March 14, it will have the sole right to negotiate in an attempt to get the hospital's creditors to accept it. In its court pleading, Children's Hospital said that it needs the time because the consultants running the hospital have been preoccupied with other tasks related to the hospital's financial woes.

The company behind the now-defunct SkyMall in-flight catalog wants a bankruptcy court to protect it from the threat of rival debt-payment plans while its creditors review its proposal, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The former SkyMall is asking the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Phoenix to extend the time in which it alone may file a chapter 11 plan and solicit its creditors' support for that plan. The court approved the company's disclosure statement last month, paving the way for creditors to cast their votes. Ballots are due July 27, but the company's exclusive solicitation period currently lasts through July 21. As a result, the company is asking the court to extend its exclusive filing and solicitation rights through the hearing at which the court will consider confirming the plan. The confirmation hearing is currently scheduled for Aug. 5.

Alpha Natural Resources Inc. is in talks to obtain financing for a potential bankruptcy filing early next month as it grapples with a severe downturn in coal prices, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The Bristol, Va., coal miner is negotiating the terms of a “debtor in possession” loan with its loan holders and senior bondholders. The new financing would help see Alpha through bankruptcy should it file for chapter 11 protection in early August, around the time some of its convertible bonds come due. The loan could total around $300 million to $400 million.

Walter Energy Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection yesterday, becoming the latest coal miner to do so as they struggle with a steep fall in prices since 2011, Reuters reported yesterday. The company said that only its U.S. units have filed for a pre-packaged chapter 11 protection, and that operations in Canada and the UK are not included in the filings. Walter Energy, which has coal mines in Alabama and West Virginia, said terms of the restructuring assume senior lenders will convert all of their debt into equity. The Birmingham, Ala.-based company also said it had enough cash to assure that vendors and suppliers would be paid during the reorganization process.

Milagro Oil & Gas filed for chapter 11 protection yesterday, joining the ranks of energy companies seeking refuge from diving commodity prices, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The Houston company has an agreement with major creditors that calls for it to swap its oil and gas assets to White Oak Resources VI LLC in exchange for $120 million in cash plus about $97 million in equity in White Oak. Described in court papers, Milagro’s restructuring strategy is designed to pay off about $88 million in top-ranking debt, and swap or sell equity in the reorganized Milagro to second lien noteholders, in exchange for $250 million worth of existing debt and new value from a rights offering. Milagro said that it has been trying for “several years” to find a way out of financial trouble caused by declining crude oil and natural gas prices. Despite those efforts, the company found itself “hamstrung by the same commodities pricing issues that had plagued their ability to generate profits since 2008,” according to papers filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. Read more. (Subscription required.)

For an in-depth look at issues surrounding oil and gas bankruptcies, be sure to pick up a copy of ABI’s When Gushers Go Dry: The Essentials of Oil & Gas Bankruptcy.

The corporate parent of the A&P, Pathmark, Waldbaum’s and Food Emporium grocery chains — the country’s biggest company 50 years ago — is set to file for chapter 11 as soon as this week, the New York Post reported today. The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co.’s filing is expected to come in the form of a pre-packaged bankruptcy, which could divvy up the company’s best locations. A&P has already hired Evercore Partners, an investment bank that specializes in selling assets. After years of brutal competition with Walmart, A&P was further hobbled by its 2007 acquisition of Pathmark, a deal engineered by billionaire Ron Burkle, which left A&P saddled with debt.