%1

An Eastern Carolina hospital is closed and will file for bankruptcy, WITN.com reported. Quorum Health, which operates Martin General Hospital, said that it was forced to “suspend operations today and to file for bankruptcy.” The company has a lease with Martin County to operate the hospital until 2029. Quorum said that they proposed reverting the hospital back to the county, but according to a news release, Martin County “chose not to respond to our proposal.” The hospital says it has faced financial challenges due to a declining population and more people in the county going to other hospitals. It said in 2022, Martin General lost $13 million. Martin General said it reached out to eight organizations, including several local and regional health systems and none were willing to purchase or assume operation of the hospital. Martin County Commissioner Joe Ayers says that he was notified that the hospital diverted all EMS calls at 10 a.m. They are taking no new patients at this time, Ayers said. Read more..

The financially troubled healthcare sector will be the focus of the ABI Healthcare Program, September 18-19, 2023, in Nashville, Tenn. For more information and to register, click here.

Casco Development filed for bankruptcy on a $539 million luxury condo in Chelsea that never got off the ground, The Real Deal reported. The firm’s Noam Teltch signed the chapter 11 filing as the company looks to sell the debt-ridden, vacant development site at 540 West 21st Street in New York City. Secured and unsecured debt at the property totals $256.7 million, based on an analysis of the bankruptcy filing. Casco is controlled by a foreign real estate investor named Uri Chaitchik, Crain’s reported in 2014 when the firm bought the site from the Atlantic Foundation. The foundation’s John Johnson, an heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, reportedly offered to return $2 million to the developers if their project achieved LEED certification.

FTX Dubai, which was created just months before the global crypto exchange collapsed last November, is asking to be exempt from U.S. bankruptcy proceedings, TheStreet.com reported. “FTX Dubai is balance-sheet solvent. Therefore, the debtors believe that a solvent voluntary liquidation procedure in accordance with the laws of the United Arab Emirates would allow a timely distribution of the positive cash balance after payment of all outstanding liabilities and liquidation of all assets," court documents said. Although the parent company went into bankruptcy proceedings in November, its decision to wrap up 102 affiliated entities scattered across the world in its proceedings has caused problems. FTX Dubai, for example, was owned by FTX's Europe arm. Now, FTX Dubai is claiming it was not engaged in business before the FTX collapse and has "no reasonable likelihood of rehabilitating its operations." It only wanted the ability to pay employee wages and benefits. The issue is pending a hearing at the end of the month.

Private equity giant KKR & Co. is poised to hand over embattled payments firm Unzer to a group of creditors, Bloomberg News reported. Debt providers Alcentra Asset Management Ltd, Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Partners Group have agreed in principle to take over a majority stake in Unzer, providing fresh equity while foregoing some debt. KKR is set to retain a minority interest as part of the deal. The transaction still requires regulatory approval. “Unzer has recently received substantial funding to accelerate its growth following an agreement with our shareholders and a consortium of existing investors,” KKR and Unzer said in a joint statement. “The new investment strengthens our capital structure and bolsters our liquidity” and KKR will continue to have an economic interest in the payments firm, the statement said, without providing further details.

There were 362 commercial chapter 11 filings registered in July 2023, an increase of 71 percent from the 212 filings registered in July 2022, according to data provided by Epiq Bankruptcy, the leading provider of U.S. bankruptcy filing data. Overall commercial filings increased 21 percent to 1,961 in July 2023, up from the 1,621 commercial filings registered in July 2022. Small business filings, captured as subchapter V elections within chapter 11, increased 61 percent to 153 in July 2023, up from 95 in July 2022. Total bankruptcy filings were 35,716 in July 2023, a 15 percent increase from the July 2022 total of 30,862. Individual bankruptcy filings totaled 33,755 in July 2023, registering a 16 percent increase from the July 2022 filing 29,241 total. There were 19,476 individual chapter 7 filings in July, a 17 percent increase versus 16,645 in July 2022 and there were 14,229 individual chapter 13 filings in July, a 13 percent increase over the 12,547 filings the previous year.

Johnson & Johnson and a committee of cancer victims have agreed to speed up a court appeal of their fight regarding whether the health-care giant can use bankruptcy to end as many as 100,000 talc-related claims, Bloomberg News reported. The move could cut months off the appeals process. The first time the two sides fought about the issue, it took about a year and resulted in the bankruptcy case being dismissed. Now, J&J intends to appeal a decision by US Bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan to throw out the insolvency case of LTL Management, the unit the company created in order to try to resolve tens of thousands of cancer lawsuits. With Judge Kaplan gearing up to likely sign a final order dismissing the bankruptcy case next week — for the second time — both J&J and the committee of cancer victims want the federal appeals court to take up the matter. The cancer lawsuits have been on hold since J&J put LTL into bankruptcy for the first time in 2021. After that case was dismissed, J&J struck a deal with tens of thousands of claimants and put LTL back into bankruptcy, only to have that case struck down as well.

Wireless venture Ligado Networks is in talks with its major creditors about a debt restructuring that would ease the way for a commercial deal to expand its satellite offerings, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Ligado is exploring ways to restructure its stack of debt and equity securities ahead of a roughly $4 billion bond maturity in November, these people said. While Ligado is expected to win broad support for a restructuring, it is considering a bankruptcy filing to implement settlement terms if creditors don’t agree unanimously. The company set the restructuring in motion aiming to allow for commercial deals involving its satellite service with a leaner balance sheet free of imminent debt obligations. Such deals include a possible joint venture to pool spectrum licenses with telecom companies including Viasat, which Ligado recently owed at least $350 million under a 2007 agreement signed with Inmarsat, a satellite operator acquired by Viasat earlier this year. Some of Ligado’s major creditors have been developing the broad strokes of a restructuring that would maintain the existing order of payment priority among lenders and shareholders of the company, while trimming some debt by turning it into preferred equity.