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Creditors of distressed Brazilian retailer Americanas SA approved a restructuring plan to overhaul 50 billion reais ($10.3 billion) of debt in a key step to applying a recovery plan nearly a year after its sudden implosion due to a multi-year fraud, Bloomberg News reported. With more than 97% of banks, bondholders and suppliers represented at the virtual meeting, the creditors gave the company the green light to proceed with the plan that envisions a capital injection of 24 billion reais in 2024 and recovery rates close to 30%. The stock gained as much as 7.8% in Sao Paulo trading to 0.97 reais a share. Brazil’s wealthiest and most iconic businessmen billionaires Jorge Paulo Lemann, Carlos Sicupira and Marcel Telles are the largest shareholders of Americanas and have agreed to inject 12 billion reais into the company as part of the recovery plan. They’ve already put up 1.5 billion reais as part of debtor-in-possession financing and will disburse another 3.5 billion reais shortly after the plan’s approval, chief financial officer Camille Loyo Faria said in the assembly on Tuesday.

The "National Guard and Reservists Debt Relief Extension Act of 2023" (H.R. 3315) was signed into law yesterday by President Biden after passing the Senate on Monday and the House of Representatives on Dec. 11. The bipartisan measure was reintroduced on May 15 by Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) to provide the same means-test treatment under chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code for guard members and reservists who were recently federally deployed as that of active duty servicemembers. The legislation exempts for an additional four-year period, from the application of the means-test presumption of abuse under chapter 7, qualifying members of reserve components of the Armed Forces and members of the National Guard who, after September 11, 2001, are called to active duty or to perform a homeland defense activity for not less than 90 days.

Bankrupt pharmacy chain Rite Aid Corp. agreed to begin court-supervised mediation with lower ranking creditors, including groups that blame the company for contributing to America’s opioid addiction crisis, Bloomberg News reported. The company, backed by senior lenders, will negotiate with unsecured creditors about how to end the retailer’s insolvency case and on a potential loan package to fund the company’s exit from bankruptcy, Rite Aid attorney Aparna Yenamandra said in court Tuesday. The company will try reach a deal before the end of January, Yenamandra said. The pharmacy chain held a video court hearing Tuesday to ask US Bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan to approve a $3.25 billion loan package to refinance older debt and to help pay for the company’s reorganization case. Kaplan said he will sign an order approving the financing later this week after the company makes adjustments to the wording of the loan proposal documents. Rite Aid is trying to sell itself while under court protection in order to pay creditors owed billions of dollars. Should the company fail to find a buyer willing to keep at least part of the chain open, Rite Aid would be forced to liquidate. When retailers liquidate in bankruptcy, lower-ranking creditors are typically paid far less than if the company successfully reorganizes.

Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX Trading on Tuesday announced a settlement with liquidators for FTX's Bahamas unit, resolving a long-simmering dispute over whether the company's U.S. bankruptcy proceedings should take precedence over the Bahamian liquidation, Reuters reported. FTX and FTX Digital Markets have agreed to pool their assets and harmonize their approach to valuing customer claims to ensure equal treatment for customers in either country's insolvency process. The settlement will allow most customers of FTX.com's international crypto exchange to choose whether to seek repayment from either the U.S. bankruptcy or the Bahamian liquidation, according to FTX. FTX's CEO John Ray, who took control of the company from convicted FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, said that the agreement is a critical milestone in the company's effort to repay customers. "The unique challenges raised by the conflicting filings of the FTX Debtors and FTX Digital Markets have been some of the toughest the team has faced," Ray said in a statement. "But we recognized at the beginning that we have an overlapping constituency: FTX.com customers."

Digital Currency Group (DCG) can’t make any ownership changes with Genesis until the former exits bankruptcy, a judge ruled on Monday, Blockworks.co reported. The ruling leaves Genesis protected under DCG’s tax consolidated group, giving certain benefits to the bankrupt institutional-focused crypto lender. Those benefits are in effect until the “occurrence of the effective date of a Chapter 11 plan” or the bankruptcy is converted to a chapter 7 case. Genesis filed the motion back in late November, arguing that DCG’s stake in Genesis must stay above 80% to “to protect the potential value of [its holding company’s] interest in the federal net operating loss [NOL] carryforwards of the DCG Group.” Net operating loss carryforwards are a tax benefit, allowing Genesis — or any eligible company — to deduct losses from future profits. Genesis is “estimated to have generated in excess of $700 million of NOLs in the course of [its] business,” which it could lose under ownership changes. The carryforwards, Genesis said, are “directly attributable to the failure by the digital asset hedge fund Three Arrows Capital” to repay loans given by Genesis Asia Pacific.

Bird Global Inc., the company that put electric scooters onto the sidewalks of major cities, has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Southern Florida, Bloomberg News reported. The Miami, Fla.-based company listed assets and liabilities of between $100 million and $500 million in a court filing. The filing protects the company from creditors while it seeks court approval of a plan to try to repay them. A former Uber Technologies Inc. executive, Travis VanderZanden, founded Bird in 2017. It let customers remotely unlock the scooters and rent them using an app. The model was widely copied and turned Bird into one of the fastest startups to reach a $1 billion valuation at one point. Bird shares plunged this year as scooter enthusiasm faded and in September the NYSE began delisting proceedings against the company after its average global market capitalization over a consecutive 30 trading day period fell below at least $15 million.

Final payments from a trust funded by utility PG&E to compensate victims of wildfires caused by its power lines will soon be distributed, but none will make the victims whole for their losses, the Wall Street Journal reported. The trust was created in 2020 after PG&E reached a $13.5 billion settlement with roughly 70,000 people who suffered losses and damages. The company, which had sought bankruptcy protection after the fires, used equal parts cash and stock to fund it. The trust this month sold its last block of shares, finalizing the amount of money available for distribution to victims. Its assets are worth just over $14 billion, more than the nominal value of the settlement. Victims’ claims, though, are expected to top $19 billion. They have so far received about 60% of their value, and the final percentage will likely be much lower than what some attorneys touted at the time the settlement was negotiated. “I understand and I’m very sympathetic to the fact that people had the impression they were going to get 100%, but that was never true,” said Cathy Yanni, an attorney who serves as trustee of the trust. “In bankruptcy, no one gets 100%.” PG&E, as part of its plan to exit bankruptcy, agreed to pay more than $25 billion overall to compensate for wildfire-related losses, but two other major settlements — with California governments and insurance companies — paid those parties entirely in cash. Fire victims were the only class of claimants to be compensated with shares in the company.

Insolvent European property company Signa is holding talks to potentially sell its stake in New York's Chrysler Building and is shedding its private jet, its administrator said on Tuesday, a significant development in the salvaging of founder Rene Benko's real estate empire, Reuters reported. The efforts, announced to Signa's creditors in Vienna, mark a first update by the court-appointed insolvency administrator on plans for Signa, the biggest casualty so far of Europe's property crisis. Insolvent European property company Signa is holding talks to potentially sell its stake in New York's Chrysler Building and is shedding its private jet, its administrator said on Tuesday, a significant development in the salvaging of founder Rene Benko's real estate empire. The efforts, announced to Signa's creditors in Vienna, mark a first update by the court-appointed insolvency administrator on plans for Signa, the biggest casualty so far of Europe's property crisis.