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Catalina Marketing Corp., a data and marketing services provider to retailers and consumer products companies, filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday for the second time with a prepackaged plan to slash debt and sell its business in Japan, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Catalina has suffered from a decline in demand for its services in recent years, including during the COVID-19 pandemic when most retailers were forced to close their doors, according to a court filing yesterday by Chief Financial Officer Michael Huffmaster. The company filed for chapter 11 protection with a deal in hand to sell its Japanese business to a buyer backed by a Japanese private-equity firm for $103 million and to restructure its U.S. business by reducing its $370 million in debt, according to the filing. The St. Petersburg, Fla.-based company has garnered the support of nearly all creditors to cut $260 million in debt and will seek to exit bankruptcy within just over two months, court papers show. A restructuring plan has already been put to a vote of creditors, with ballots due on April 11. The company slashed even more debt, $1.6 billion, when it last filed for bankruptcy in 2018, but the business faced unexpected headwinds since then, according to Mr. Huffmaster.

Platinum Equity LLC-owned Incora risks running out of cash later this year as the aerospace supplier is struggling to drum up enough money to service its debts while facing mounting creditor litigation, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The Fort Worth, Texas-based distributor of airplane parts had about $140 million of liquidity late last year, according to people familiar with the company’s finances. Incora has approximately $100 million in interest payments due in May, the people said. Traders said the company would struggle to raise new funds in volatile capital markets and its own debt is trading at deeply distressed levels. Incora’s 13.125% unsecured bonds due 2027 were recently quoted around 8 cents on the dollar, while its 8.5% unsecured bonds due 2024 traded around 12 cents, according to traders, implying that investors think a bankruptcy or restructuring is likely. Incora was formed through a combination of two Platinum Equity companies, Wesco Aircraft Holdings Inc. and Pattonair, a provider of supply-chain management services for the aerospace and defense industries, in 2020. The lack of access to funding has prevented the company from capitalizing on high spending from aerospace companies because of a surge in airplane travel and military expenditures, according to the people.

A federal judge backed the Boy Scouts of America’s chapter 11 plan to settle sex-abuse lawsuits that sent the youth group to bankruptcy, bringing it closer to ending more than three years of court protection, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. U.S. District Judge Richard G. Andrews of the U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Del., upheld the youth group’s settlement plan for more than 82,000 claims of childhood sexual abuse, rejecting appeals from some victims and insurance companies following its approval by a bankruptcy court last year. Yesterday’s ruling puts the Boy Scouts on the cusp of ending the largest-ever bankruptcy case resulting from allegations of childhood sexual abuse and bolsters the use of chapter 11 to resolve mass litigation. The chapter 11 plan is expected to resolve the Irving, Texas-based group’s liability for decades of childhood sexual abuse and settle claims against affiliated local councils and the civic and religious groups that sponsored scouting activities. Local councils, sponsoring groups, insurance companies and the Boy Scouts put together a $2.5 billion fund for victim compensation. The bankruptcy plan makes it possible for abuse claims to be administered and paid in “an equitable process,” according to the judge’s ruling. Judge Andrews said that nearly every creditor constituency supported the chapter 11 plan, a “commendable result for such a lengthy, contentious and emotionally charged proceeding.” The Boy Scouts would leave chapter 11 low on cash but retaining much of the property held by its local councils that makes up the majority of the organization’s wealth.

Cineworld Group Plc is set to submit its bankruptcy-exit plan on Wednesday after reaching a deal with creditors to trim billions of dollars of debt from its balance sheet, according to a lawyer for the company, Bloomberg News reported. Cineworld expects to file the plan alongside a restructuring support agreement — a deal in which a troubled company’s key creditors agree to back a debt-cutting proposal. Both agreements should be filed publicly on Wednesday, Josh Sussberg, a bankruptcy lawyer for Cineworld, said in a court hearing Tuesday. “We are down to literally dotting ‘i’s and crossing ‘t’s,” Sussberg said. He didn’t provide further details on the plan. The world’s second-largest theater chain, which owns Regal Cinemas in the US, has struggled to find buyers for the whole company in recent months. It has received no bids that come close to covering Cineworld’s $6 billion in outstanding secured debt, Sussberg said. A sale process for the holding company has effectively “been terminated,” he added. However, there are several potential buyers interested in the company’s operations in eastern Europe and Israel, he said. Binding bids for that portion of the firm are due on April 10.

U.S. prosecutors on Tuesday unveiled a new indictment against Sam Bankman-Fried, accusing the founder of now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange of conspiring to pay a $40 million bribe to Chinese government officials, Reuters reported. The new bribery conspiracy charge adds the pressure on the 31-year-old former billionaire, who now faces a 13-count indictment over the November collapse of FTX. Prosecutors had previously accused Bankman-Fried of stealing billions of dollars in customer funds to plug losses at his Alameda Research hedge fund, and orchestrating an illegal campaign donation scheme to buy influence in Washington, D.C. Bankman-Fried is expected to be arraigned on Thursday in Manhattan federal court. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan will also consider modifications to his $250 million bail package. The indictment said Bankman-Fried ordered the $40 million cryptocurrency payment to a private wallet from Alameda's main trading account, to persuade Chinese authorities to unfreeze Alameda accounts with more than $1 billion of cryptocurrency.

Shares of AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc jumped as much as 21% on Tuesday, following a report that ecommerce giant Amazon.com Inc was looking to buy the theater chain, Reuters reported. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has dispatched his investment advisers and top entertainment chiefs to explore acquisition plans for AMC, entertainment industry news website The Intersect reported, citing sources familiar with the discussions. Amazon last year closed its $8.5 billion deal for MGM, adding the company behind "Rocky" and James Bond in a bid to beef up its Prime Video streaming service amid intensifying competition. Movie theaters are struggling to draw in crowds since the lifting of pandemic restrictions, as rising costs force people to cut spending on out-of-home entertainment and more on groceries and rent. "We do not think that AMC is a likely acquisition target in general given its massive debt and inflated valuation," said Wedbush Securities. The brokerage said the online retailer would be better off buying United Kingdom's Cineworld Group Plc, which filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection in September.