Customers of Voyager Digital voted in favor of the crypto lender's chapter 11 bankruptcy plan, the company said in a tweet yesterday, Reuters reported. Of those who participated in the voting, "97% of customers representing 98% of the total claims, voted in favor," the company said.
HyreCar Inc., a publicly traded car-sharing platform, has filed for bankruptcy, partly blaming mounting legal fees from numerous lawsuits and investigations, including Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission probes into insider stock trading, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. HyreCar stock closed down 83% to 2 cents a share Monday. Its shares peaked at roughly $24 in June 2021. The Los Angeles-based company, which earlier this month warned that it might file for bankruptcy, has total assets of $16.5 million and total debts, all unsecured, of $18.4 million. The money is owed to trade creditors, its landlord and others. Last week it provided written notice to its landlord that it was ending its lease since all of its 59 employees have been working remotely. Holmes Motors Inc., which is affiliated with an equity owner who recently took a stake in the business, is offering to provide up to $5 million in bankruptcy financing, including $3.1 million on an interim basis. It will also serve as lead bidder in a sale process with a starting offer of roughly $7.8 million.
Toronto-Dominion Bank on Friday agreed to pay $1.2 billion to settle claims stemming from the Canadian bank’s involvement in the Ponzi scheme perpetrated by convicted swindler R. Allen Stanford, resolving nearly all outstanding litigation related to the fraud, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Michigan-based Independent Bank and London-based HSBC Holdings PLC also reached settlements on Friday, following deals struck last month by Société Générale SA of Paris and Trustmark National Bank of Jackson, Miss. The deals reached this year totaled more than $1.6 billion, pending court approval, according to lawyers representing the court-appointed receiver in the case. The receiver also recouped more than $1.1 billion through previous litigation, bringing the total amount of potential recoveries to more than $2.7 billion, proceeds that will go toward making restitution to victims of the fraud. Stanford Financial Group, now defunct, was a financial-services company that operated until it was seized by U.S. authorities in early 2009. Its former chairman, Mr. Stanford, was convicted in 2012 of running a two-decade investment-fraud scheme amounting to $7 billion, one of the largest frauds in U.S. history. He was sentenced to 110 years in prison.
The Corner Bakery restaurant chain filed for bankruptcy this week, after the COVID-19 pandemic emptied out offices, bringing sharp declines in earnings and revenue, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Chief Executive Jignesh Pandya said a lender recently threatened a foreclosure sale, pushing the company into bankruptcy. The shift to working from home proved problematic for the chain as it generates a large part of its revenue from office catering and serving breakfast and lunch to commuters, according to court papers filed by Mr. Pandya on Wednesday. The Dallas-based chain has locations in about 20 states including California, Texas and Illinois. It was founded in 1991 and was acquired in 2020 by Pandya Restaurant Growth Brands LLC, which is operated by Mr. Pandya. Corner Bakery was negotiating with lenders who alleged it had defaulted on its loans. The company was in talks with its lenders to pay off more than $20 million, when they sold the loan to SSCP Restaurant Investors LLC, which then moved to begin a foreclosure sale of its assets, according to Mr. Pandya’s court filing. SSCP didn’t address Corner Bakery’s offer to make loan payments, according to Mr. Pandya.
LexaGene Holdings, together with subsidiaries LexaGene and Bionomics Diagnostics, announced on Friday that it has filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy, ceased operations, and laid off its staff, Genomeweb.com reported. Although the financial results of the liquidation are uncertain and beyond the company's control, LexaGene does not expect that liquidation proceeds realized by the bankruptcy will satisfy all creditors, nor that the company's shareholders will receive any distribution of those proceeds. LexaGene does not intend to undertake any proceedings under Canada's Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act, or similar Canadian proceedings. LexaGene's board of directors currently remains intact, and the company does not intend to seek voluntary delisting from the Canadian TSX Venture Exchange. The firm also trades on the OTC bulletin board in the US, where its stock trades at $.08 per share. The Beverly, Mass.-based company had adjusted its flagship MiQLab RT-PCR system from largely veterinary and food safety uses to COVID-19 testing early in 2021. Later that same year, it signed an agreement with the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command to evaluate MiQLab's use in detecting biothreats. Early last year, Meridian LGH had invested approximately $5 million in LexaGene, which upon closing, gave the financer approximately 13 percent of LexaGene's issued and outstanding common shares at that time.
Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. is informing the professional-sports teams whose games are carried on three of its regional sports networks that it wishes to cease operating the channels and exit the business, the Wall Street Journal reported. The three regional sports networks were inherited by Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. when it acquired control of the WarnerMedia assets from AT&T Inc. The channels—which are still branded as AT&T SportsNet—serve teams in Pittsburgh, Houston, Colorado and Utah—and carry baseball, basketball and hockey. In a letter sent Friday from the unit’s president Patrick Crumb—a copy of which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal—teams were warned that “the business will not have sufficient cash to pay the upcoming rights fees,” people familiar with the letter said. The teams were also told that Warner Bros. Discovery “will not fund our shortfalls,” they said. The letter proposes that AT&T SportsNet transfer ownership of the networks and programming rights to the teams for no purchase price consideration beyond a release by the teams of any future claims against the networks. Bankruptcy is also on the table, the letter said. “Unless we can reach a deal to transfer ownership of the network (and the attendant rights)” by March 31, “our only realistic option is to file for chapter 7 liquidation,” the letter to the respective teams said.
Carvana Co. is staring down rising interest payments each of the next three months with vehicle sales and earnings moving in the wrong direction, Bloomberg News reported. The $7.61-a-share loss the used-car retailer registered last quarter was more than triple the deficit analysts were expecting. Coming off its lowest retail unit sales in two years, Carvana forecast another drop in the first three months of this year, as it shrinks inventory and slashes marketing spending. After making an ill-timed acquisition just as sales and used-car prices took a turn, the once rapidly growing retailer is “firmly in retreat mode,” Kevin Tynan, a Bloomberg Intelligence auto analyst, said in a note. Carvana shares tumbled 15% at 9:39 a.m. Friday in New York. The quarterly loss reported after the close Thursday caps a disastrous year in which Carvana’s stock plummeted 98%, erasing almost almost $37 billion of market capitalization. While the shares more than doubled this year through Thursday, Bloomberg Intelligence credit analyst Joel Levington cautioned ahead of the earnings that the move mirrored what occurred at Hertz Global Holdings Inc. before the car-rental company filed for bankruptcy in 2020. Carvana’s biggest problem is its debt, which stands at more than $8 billion with $2.4 billion in cash burn projected over the next two years, according to Levington. Carvana, which carries credit ratings in the CCC tier, faces a tough environment if it were to try to sell more corporate bonds. The company has more than $5 billion of debt that trades distressed, among the biggest piles of troubled securities in the world. Some of Carvana’s largest creditors have banded together in an effort to secure more favorable terms ahead of a potential debt restructuring.
