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Dish Network has terminated a recent exchange deal aiming to push out its debt maturity, while a separate debt swap offer from the telecommunications company remains in effect, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. EchoStar, Dish’s parent company, late Monday said its subsidiary ended an offer announced two weeks ago to swap more than $6 billion of its unsecured notes maturing between this year and 2029. The proposal had offered new secured debt of up to $4 billion maturing in 2030 and beyond, with the new notes secured by assets including Dish’s more than three million subscribers. EchoStar, which recently merged with Dish Network, earlier this month said it hired investment bank Houlihan Lokey and law firm White & Case to assist the company in looking for ways to address its more than $20 billion debt load. A separate Dish debt exchange announced Jan. 12 is still in effect. That deal offered to swap nearly $5 billion of its convertible notes to new debt that will mature in 2029 and 2030. These new notes would be issued under an unrestricted subsidiary and secured by certain spectrum licenses moved to that entity, EchoStar said at the time.

Bankrupt pharmacy chain Rite Aid Corp. hired liquidators at the request of company lenders even as the retailer continues negotiating with at least two potential buyers, Bloomberg News reported. Two liquidation consultants — Hilco Merchant Resources and SB360 Capital Partners — will help the company run going-out-of-business sales for any stores to be shuttered. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan gave the company permission to hire the liquidators during a court hearing held by video on Monday. Since it filed for bankruptcy in October, the company has been closing unprofitable stores while trying to find a buyer for those it hopes to keep open. So far, Rite Aid has rejected about 500 leases while under court protection, company lawyer Warren Usatine said in court on Monday. The company operated more than 2,100 stores when it began the restructuring case, according to court records. The liquidators were hired mainly to satisfy lenders who are financing Rite Aid’s bankruptcy case. The chain is still negotiating with at least two potential buyers on the scope of their bids. Last month, the company agreed to sell its insurance-related business Elixir to MedImpact Healthcare Systems for $575 million after no higher bid came in, court papers show.

A businessman from Randolph County and an investment group from Upshur County could be poised to square off Wednesday for the purchase of the shuttered Alderson Broaddus University campus, WVNews.com reported. The investment company, DACK Investments of Buckhannon, first agreed to pay $4.9 for the property, only to see that topped late last week, just before the deadline, with a $5 million offer by Elkins businessman Craig G. Phillips. The 170-campus overlooks the City of Philippi and includes several buildings, plus an artificial turf football stadium. An auction for the property now will be held Wednesday morning at U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Clarksburg. Unless bidding skyrockets far above where it is now, the return for creditors will remain pennies on the dollar as the U.S. Department of Agriculture alone holds a note of over $30 million. The small Baptist university filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy in August, a month after announcing that it planned to stop operating. The filing allowed the university to liquidate its assets. The university estimated it had between $1 million and $10 million in total assets, liabilities of between $10 million and $50 million and owed money to between 100 and 199 creditors.

Hospital bankruptcies spiked in 2023 with 12 filings compared to a total of 11 filings in the previous three years combined. Three of those bankruptcy filings were by hospitals in Texas, with another four hospitals in the state either closing or sharing plans to close as inflation, staffing shortages and other financial headwinds continue to challenge healthcare providers, according to Becker's Hospital CFO Report. Dallas-based Steward Health Care on May 1 closed Texas Vista Medical Center in San Antonio, resulting in 827 layoffs. The 325-bed hospital was already struggling financially when Steward acquired it in 2017, and the pandemic exacerbated its losses. Traditionally, the hospital served lower-income patients; nearly 25% of its patients cannot and do not pay for medical services, according to the health system. Steward, which is trying to to sell four of its hospitals amid financial difficulties, will also close the Medical Center of Southeast Texas in Beaumont, effective Feb. 2. All care offered at the Beaumont location will be taken in by the center's Port Arthur campus. The physician-owned hospital "was severely underutilized given the needs in the region," a spokesperson for Steward told Becker's. Another Texas physician-owned hospital, West Lake Hills-based the Hospital at Westlake Medical Center, closed its emergency department on Dec. 29. The decision came three months after the hospital filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing significant debt that was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. La Grange-based St. Mark's Medical Center also closed its doors Oct. 12 after unsuccessful efforts to fulfill its financial obligations. After cutting nearly half of its staff in February, the hospital converted to a rural emergency hospital designation to preserve its emergency department services and most outpatient care. However, the hospital found it could no longer sustain the $13 million of mortgage debt, as it had been paying less than the full mortgage since 2020. Lion Star LLC, the group that operates Nacogdoches Memorial Hospital, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in November. The filing outlines that the hospital owes as much as $50 million to creditors. At least 200 creditors have claims against Lion Star, and the largest 20 credit claims total more than $8 million.

An appointee of the U.S. Department of Justice is seeking to throw out the Gastonia Honey Hunters owner's chapter 11 bankruptcy case, the Charlotte Business Journal reported. Acting U.S. Trustee Gerard Vetter motioned earlier this month to dismiss NC Gas House Gang LLC's case. The motion argued that a dismissal would be in the best interest of creditors in the case. Vetter's motion highlights that the entity, which is led by Honey Hunters owner Brandon Bellamy, has struggled to obtain and maintain proper insurance. In the alternative to dismissal, Vetter's motion seeks to convert the case to a chapter 7 liquidation. Vetter made the motion on Jan. 8. The motion argued that NC Gas House Gang's total assets — which the entity recently reported to be $8,615 — cannot come close to satisfying its $2.5 million in liabilities. NC Gas House Gang filed an opposition to Vetter's motion on Jan. 22. The entity argues the motion should be denied because NC Gas House Gang has now obtained all required insurance coverage. Judge Lori S. Simpson last week scheduled a hearing for Feb. 12 to consider the dismissal motion, court records state.

FTX is unloading cryptoassets and hoarding cash as bankruptcy advisers look for a way to repay customers whose accounts have been frozen since the platform collapsed in 2022, Bloomberg News reported. The fraud-tainted crypto firm’s four largest affiliates — including FTX Trading Ltd. and Alameda Research LLC — together nearly doubled the group’s cash pile to $4.4 billion at the end of 2023 from about $2.3 billion in late October, according to chapter 11 monthly operating reports. The company’s total cash is likely higher including the rest of its affiliates. The company said in a court filing last month that FTX raised $1.8 billion through Dec. 8 by selling off some of the firm’s digital assets. FTX also said that it’s conducting Bitcoin derivative trades to hedge exposure to the coin and generate additional yield on its digital holdings — and is exploring options to potentially restart the exchange. An uptick in FTX’s cash stockpile has coincided with the rising value of customer accounts. Since FTX unraveled in November 2022, bankruptcy advisers have been tracking down assets and struck deals intended to benefit customers who had smaller accounts on the platform. The company has also brought major lawsuits against former associates of Sam Bankman-Fried and crypto firms like Bybit Fintech Ltd. that withdrew funds from FTX before it filed chapter 11. Customer claims worth more than $1 million traded at around 73 cents on the dollar as of Friday, up from around 38 cents on the dollar in October, according to investment firm and bankruptcy claims broker Cherokee Acquisition. Actual trading prices depend on the value of a specific claim and other factors, Cherokee Acquisition said. Read more.

In related news, Rashit Makhat was paid close to $500 million months before FTX collapsed when he sold most of his stake in a bitcoin-mining enterprise, Genesis Digital Assets, to Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund, the Wall Street Journal reported. Makhat’s lawyers in London say he remains in possession of the proceeds. The peak-of-market deal made Makhat one of the biggest individual beneficiaries of what U.S. prosecutors in Bankman-Fried’s recent trial called a “spending spree” of money Bankman-Fried stole from FTX customers. In pressing their case, prosecutors used details such as bank-account data and testimony from insiders to show how much of the $8 billion of customer money went into startups and other investments. Bankman-Fried was convicted and is in custody awaiting sentencing. The early 2022 Genesis Digital deal was among the largest highlighted by prosecutors, who displayed to jurors a diagram showing how more than $1 billion of funds went from customers to an account owned by Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund and then into Genesis Digital shares. Prosecutors didn’t mention Makhat, who hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing. Prosecutors also singled out Bankman-Fried-led deals including Bahamas property purchases and $1.2 billion that went toward buying out the rival crypto exchange Binance, which had been an FTX shareholder. Read more. (Subscription required.)

Property developer China Evergrande Group has been ordered to liquidate by a Hong Kong court, bringing an end to the yearslong saga of a company whose default rippled through the world’s second-largest economy, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The liquidation order came despite an 11th-hour push by the company’s creditors to reach a deal over the weekend, according to people familiar with the matter. It comes more than two years after the company defaulted on its dollar bonds, becoming one of the first dominoes to fall in China’s beleaguered real-estate sector. “The time is for the court to say enough is enough,” said Judge Linda Chan in Hong Kong’s high court. The judge said that Evergrande was given another adjournment in December to come up with a new restructuring deal, seek comments from the creditors, and get a legal opinion on the proposal. “None of that has happened,” Chan said. Evergrande’s lawyer argued for another adjournment, saying that an immediate liquidation order would affect the value of the company’s offshore assets and subsidiaries, thereby damaging the potential recovery rate for creditors. But a lawyer for the main creditors group argued that Evergrande hadn’t negotiated with them in good faith, and the judge agreed.

3M said that participation in its $6 billion settlement of allegations that its earplugs caused hearing loss among veterans is on pace to exceed the 98% threshold required by the agreement, the Wall Street Journal reported. Last year, 3M agreed to pay $6 billion, including an option to pay up to $1 billion in stock or cash, to settle the litigation. The manufacturer said Monday it had elected to pay the $1 billion in cash. The company said that its settlement has garnered support from more than 250,000 eligible claimants, who have agreed to release their claims as part of their participation in the settlement.