Allied Nevada Gold Corp., which operates the gaming state’s Hycroft mine, filed for bankruptcy after operational setbacks and lower gold prices eroded profitability at its sole working property, Bloomberg News reported today. The company filed for chapter 11 protection listing liabilities of as much as $1 billion and assets of more than $1 billion. Allied Nevada also reached an agreement with a group of bondholders on a $78 million debtor-in-possession credit facility that will allow it to keep operating while its debts are being restructured.
Dune Energy Inc., a Houston-based oil and gas explorer with operations in Texas and Louisiana, has sought chapter 11 protection following a failed merger, making the company the latest victim of falling oil prices, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The bankruptcy filing was triggered when revenue dropped and a deal to merge with competitor Eos Petro Inc. fell through, according to court filings yesterday in Austin, Texas. Eos backed out of the deal on March 4, Dune said. The company will seek court approval to sell its assets at an auction June 9 in Houston, according to its filings. Dune, which said no bids have been made in advance, listed assets of $229.5 million against debt of $144.2 million. It asked the court to approve a loan of as much as $10 million to finance operations in bankruptcy, with Bank of Montreal and CIT Capital Securities LLC as lenders. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-09/dune-energy-falls-to-oil-price-drop-in-texas-bankruptcy-filing
General Motors Co. said that it will buy back $5 billion in shares by the end of 2016 and that activist investor Harry J. Wilson will give up his request for a board seat after reaching an agreement with the automaker, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Wilson had requested a board seat and asked the Detroit-based company last month to use some of its cash to buy back $8 billion in shares. He was working with four hedge funds that collectively own more than 2 percent of the stock. GM also said that it will adopt a strategy to return free cash flow to shareholders while keeping investment grade credit and a minimum balance of $20 billion. The agreement with Wilson ends two months of discussions in which he urged Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra to return money to shareholders and be more open about company performance targets. As part of the announcement, GM also said that it’s investing in its business with a target of driving 20 percent returns on invested capital and will update shareholders on its progress every quarter.
A former Energy Department official has been named chief executive of Centrus Energy Corp. less than six months after the Bethesda-based supplier of enriched uranium to nuclear plants emerged from chapter 11 protection, the Washington Post reported on Saturday. Daniel B. Poneman will start as president and chief executive today, serving as a successor to John K. Welch, who stepped down in October. Poneman was appointed deputy secretary in the Energy Department in 2009, a position in which he oversaw and implemented the Obama administration’s call to harvest energy from oil, natural gas, wind, solar and other energy sources in cleaner and more secure ways. Centrus filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in March last year after executives determined that the company would be unable to afford debt and stock option payments due later in the year. The economic downturn and the Fukushima disaster had clobbered the global market for nuclear power and seriously hurt the company’s bottom line, a spokesman said at the time. The company had also been unable to secure a $2 billion loan guarantee and other funding necessary to complete its American Centrifuge Plant, a uranium enrichment facility in Ohio that executives expected would produce much-needed revenue.
Denver-based holding company Sport-Haley Holdings Inc. filed for chapter 11 protection on Thursday to help wind down its furniture maker Chromcraft Revington Inc., Reuters reported on Friday. Sport-Haley Holdings said in a statement that the bankruptcy filing was made in cooperation with its primary lender and will reduce outstanding debt.
NII Holdings Inc. reached a new restructuring deal supported by its major creditors, with new money that will keep the Latin American Nextel carrier afloat as it awaits approval of a $1.88 billion sale of its Mexico unit to AT&T Inc., Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. In a Thursday filing in bankruptcy court, NII provided details of a plan that puts NII in the hands of senior creditors and values the company at $2.81 billion. That is nearly $400 million more than a prior deal, which was made before AT&T agreed to buy the Mexico unit, a deal that is up for bankruptcy court approval later in March.
Texas-based Falcon Steel Co. is preparing to send its bankruptcy-exit plan to creditors, who have the power to reject the company's proposal to repay debts in quarterly installments, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Creditors have until March 24 to vote on a reorganization plan for the maker of steel lattice towers for power lines, according to a timeline set by Bankruptcy Judge Michael Lynn. Since Falcon Steel filed for bankruptcy on June 29, company officials found new orders to build transmission towers for the utility industry and negotiated a deal to refinance a $17.5 million bank loan.
LightSquared’s path toward exiting bankruptcy will reach a key milestone on Monday as scheduled, despite the recent introduction of a hedge-fund firm’s rival exit plan that threatened to once again disrupt the contentious chapter 11 case, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman said on Wednesday that she will begin hearing evidence on Monday morning from LightSquared on why its current restructuring plan should be confirmed by the court. The hearings are expected to last the majority of the week and possibly spill into the next. Last week, Solus Alternative Asset Management LP introduced its own proposal for the company’s future. The firm said that its plan to pump $2 billion into Philip Falcone’s wireless venture is better than the one the company has presented, which involves little new money and puts the company in the hands of investors including Centerbridge Partners LP and Fortress Investment Group LLC.
