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Bankrupt coworking-space provider WeWork said it owes 160 landlords no rents for the month of November, according to a court filing, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The company said in a Wednesday bankruptcy court filing that those landlords who disagree with the listed amount of the so-called stub rent “must first engage in a good-faith attempt to resolve such disagreement with [WeWork] before filing their proof of claim.” WeWork filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 6 after struggling with a downturn in the office market. Unless the company rejected the leases as of that date, it owes its landlords the stub rent from the petition date to the end of November, according to bankruptcy code and case law in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. That circuit covers the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of New Jersey that handles WeWork’s bankruptcy case. The filing came as a surprise for those landlords listed in the document along with the amount zero.

Off-price home goods retailer Big Lots Inc. has been seeking new financing as it grapples with years of losses and dwindling liquidity, Bloomberg News reported. The Columbus, Ohio-based chain has been reaching out to bankers and investors to assess market willingness to provide a new loan. A representative for Big Lots declined to comment on the financing effort, but said that the company has taken “significant actions to enhance our liquidity,” and “will continue to evaluate potential liquidity options.” The company’s shares fell as much as 5.9% to $5.24 after Bloomberg reported the financing effort. Big Lots runs about 1,400 stores but has been monetizing them in recent years to safeguard its cash pile. That leaves it with relatively few remaining assets to offer up as backing for potential new debt, according to its corporate filings. The discount retailer inked a sale and leaseback deal for a distribution center and 26 owned stores with affiliates of Blue Owl Capital in July for gross proceeds of $318 million, according to a prior statement.

Regional broadcast agreements for the Cleveland Guardians, Minnesota Twins and Texas Rangers for the upcoming season were approved by a federal bankruptcy judge on Friday, the Associated Press reported. Diamond Sports Group reached amended agreements with the three teams last week. All three deals expire at the end of the 2024 season. Diamond Sports has been in chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in the Southern District of Texas since it filed for protection last March. The company said in a late 2021 financial filing that it had debt of $8.67 billion. It reached a restructuring agreement with creditors last month that is still going through hearings. Diamond owns 18 networks under the Bally Sports banner. Those networks have the rights to 37 professional teams — 11 baseball, 15 NBA and 11 NHL. The Twins’ agreement with Diamond expired at the end of last season. The deals with the Guardians and defending World Series champion Rangers were restructured for less money. The deals with the three teams leave the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres as the only teams whose games will be produced by Major League Baseball for 2024.

Seattle-based research device company NanoString Technologies Inc. has secured $47.5 million in debtor-in-possession financing following its Feb. 4 announcement that it has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in federal court in Delaware, the Puget Sound Business Journal reported. The company's debtor-in-possession financing includes $12.5 million that has already been approved by the bankruptcy court, while an addition $35 million still needs final approval, expected in late February. The amount is up from an initial $40 million commitment announced early last week, and is being provided by the company's existing lenders. "With this financing, we will continue to conduct business as usual," NanoString CEO Brad Gray said in the release. "We are concurrently exploring several strategic options with the goal of assuring the long-term continuation of our mission, on behalf of all NanoString stakeholders including our customers and employees.” NanoString has filed for bankruptcy after being hammered by legal battles with competitor 10x Genomics Inc. over patent claims. When NanoString announced the bankruptcy filings, it said in a news release that it was considering options such as selling the company or certain product lines.

About a year and half ago, a small San Antonio pharmacy found itself in Bexar County’s crosshairs, targeted because of the huge amount of pain pills it dispensed. A lawyer for the county dubbed it a “pill mill.” So Trinity Pharmacies LLC was added to a 2018 lawsuit targeting drug manufacturers, a distributor and various retailers that officials said were fueling the opioid addiction crisis sweeping the San Antonio area. The litigation — in which Trinity is charged alongside retail giants such as CVS, Walgreens and Walmart — became too costly for Trinity. So, on Feb. 4, it sought chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the San Antonio Express-News reported. “It can’t, your honor, sustain the litigation costs,” Trinity lawyer H. Anthony Hervol told Chief U.S. Bankruptcy Court Craig Gargotta during a hearing Wednesday. The pharmacy has racked up more than $40,000 in legal fees defending itself in the massive multi-district litigation that’s unfolding in Harris County District Court. The bankruptcy puts the county’s lawsuit against Trinity on hold. But the filing under a subchapter of the bankruptcy code designed for small-business debtors is part of a larger legal strategy its owners hope will eventually do away with the causes of action against it. The county's claims against Trinity and other retailers include: negligent and/or intentional creation of a public nuisance; common law fraud; and civil conspiracy. The county seeks to recover from defendants its costs associated with the opioid epidemic and punitive damages.

New York Community Bancorp soared on Friday after its chief executive officer and other insiders bought more than 200,000 shares of the stock, which has lost about half its value since last week’s shock announcement of a dividend cut and larger loan-loss provisions, Bloomberg News reported. The lender rallied 17%, the most since March last year, to close at $4.90. Filings show a handful of insiders at the Hicksville, New York-based bank purchased shares Friday. Alessandro DiNello, who was appointed executive chairman this week, bought 50,000. CEO Thomas Cangemi purchased about 11,000, and several other insiders, including board members, also bought. Combined, the purchases amount to about $870,000, according to a calculation by Bloomberg. “Insider buying today is a very positive development — it is exactly what investors have wanted to see, renewed commitment to ‘eat their own cooking,’” said Christopher Marinac, an analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott. The company’s market value has declined by about $4 billion since its Jan. 31 announcement that it would slash its dividend and build a loan-loss provision that was much bigger than analysts had expected. The bank faces the prospect of stiffer regulation due to its increased asset size following a deal for part of Signature Bank last year, and it’s also grappling with concern about its commercial-property loans. The surprise announcement rattled regional-bank shares broadly, but the sector has since stabilized.

Lawyers representing a group of sex-abuse victims with claims against the Boy Scouts of America are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to pause payments to survivors from a $2.4 billion settlement fund created as part of the youth organization’s bankruptcy plan, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The lawyers, who represent a fraction of over 82,000 Boy Scouts sex-abuse plaintiffs, argued that since a central feature of the youth organization’s settlement is being litigated in the U.S. Supreme Court in the challenge to Purdue Pharma’s similar bankruptcy plan, the Boy Scouts plan should be suspended until the high court reaches a decision in the opioid maker’s case, according to court papers filed on Wednesday. Federal courts last October rejected earlier efforts by the same lawyers to suspend the Boy Scouts bankruptcy plan. U.S. District Judge Richard Andrews in Wilmington, Del., said then that unlike Purdue’s bankruptcy plan, the youth group’s reorganization had already gone into effect and many of the transactions it contemplated had already happened. The Supreme Court is set to examine on an expedited basis the issue of legal immunity granted in the Purdue reorganization plans that is also a key feature in the Boy Scouts settlement: whether bankruptcy courts can extinguish legal claims against third parties that aren’t in chapter 11 without the consent of all claimants.

Genesis Global on Wednesday won a court ruling confirming its ownership of 31.2 million shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, a windfall for the bankrupt cryptocurrency lender’s creditors, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Crypto exchange Gemini Trust in October sued Genesis, its former business partner, over the shares, saying they were pledged as collateral on loans to Genesis from customers in Gemini’s Earn investment program. The shares are now worth more than $1.2 billion as the price of bitcoin, the fund’s underlying asset, has more than doubled since Genesis filed for bankruptcy. In August 2022, Genesis offered Gemini about 30.9 million shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust to secure $1.2 billion in loans from Gemini Earn users. Three months later, as the industry’s troubles deepened following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX, Genesis Global agreed to offer an additional 31.2 million shares as collateral. But those shares in dispute were never transferred to Gemini or Earn users. Judge Sean Lane with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y., said in his written decision Wednesday that the Grayscale shares held in bankruptcy belong to Genesis because they were never transferred and dismissed Gemini Trust’s assertion to claim ownership of the shares.
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In related news, Genesis Global Holdco LLC has settled a lawsuit brought by New York’s top law enforcement official alleging the bankrupt crypto lender defrauded customers of its now-terminated Gemini Earn program, which was run jointly with Gemini Trust Co., Bloomberg News reported. The settlement with New York Attorney General Letitia James is structured so that assets that could have otherwise gone to state authorities will instead be returned to former Earn customers and other Genesis creditors. The deal must be approved by a bankruptcy judge and follows a settlement Genesis struck resolving a separate complaint over the Earn program brought by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. James sued Genesis, its parent company Digital Currency Group and Gemini last October, accusing the crypto firms of defrauding customers of $1.1 billion. The settlement disclosed Thursday in New York bankruptcy court only resolves allegations against Genesis, according to court documents. The companies have denied wrongdoing and Genesis is settling the allegations without admitting liability. Genesis, which intends to liquidate, also agreed it will no longer do business in New York.
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