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After winding down its out-of-town operations and ducking into bankruptcy last summer, WayForth’s CEO says the Richmond-based moving company is now moving in the right direction, RichmondBizSense.com reported. The once fast-growing firm that caters to seniors and formerly had a multistate presence is now operating solely in central Virginia about five months after it moved to downsize and filed for chapter 11 protection. CEO Craig Shealy said in a recent interview with BizSense that WayForth has pared back operations to the greater Richmond region to build a new foundation for the company as it looks toward a new year as a leaner operation coming out of its bankruptcy restructuring. “Our business in Richmond continues to operate and is doing well. We’re looking forward to finishing the whole restructuring process and getting back to business,” Shealy said. A federal bankruptcy judge recently approved WayForth’s chapter 11 restructuring plan. Shealy said that payments to the company’s creditors are expected to begin in April or May.

Customers and creditors of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX who can prove their losses will likely get back all of their money, the company told the judge overseeing the insolvency case, Bloomberg News reported. Restructuring advisers will need to examine the millions of claims that have been filed against FTX to weed out those that are not legitimate, lawyer Andrew Dietderich said during a Wednesday court hearing in Wilmington, Del. “I would like the court and stakeholders to understand this not as a guarantee, but as an objective,” Dietderich said. “There is still a great amount of work, and risk, between us and that result. But we believe the objective is within reach and we have a strategy to achieve it.” In addition, the team overseeing the company has dropped an effort to restart or sell the FTX crypto exchange after concluding it would cost too much, Dietderich said. Advisers ran an exhaustive process to find investors willing to restart FTX.com, but nobody would put up the cash needed to revive the exchange, he said. “The costs and risks of creating a viable exchange from what Mr. Bankman-Fried left in the dumpster were simply too high,” Dietderich said, referencing founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who shut down the crypto firm and handed control to insolvency experts in late 2022. Since then, restructuring advisers have been tracking down assets and trying to untangle a complex web of debt owed to various creditors, including customers who put cash and crypto on the trading platform. FTX’s four largest affiliates 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.

The end of China Evergrande is near, and foreign investors face a long, and likely bumpy, road trying to recover billions of dollars of their investments in the beleaguered property developer. The process will serve as a lesson for fund managers of the potential risks in investing in China’s distressed assets, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. On Monday, Hong Kong’s high court ordered the liquidation of Evergrande, putting an end to repeated extensions trying to save the company from being dissolved. But obstacles remain for overseas creditors eyeing proceeds from the sale of assets to recover scraps of their investments in the developer. In total, there are nearly $20 billion of dollar-denominated bonds involved in Evergrande’s restructuring. As things stand, the bonds are worth pennies on the dollar. Investors outside China who hold the debt aren’t likely to recover anything more than that, and it will take years for any recovery. Obstacles standing in the way of Evergrande’s offshore creditors include legal uncertainty over whether the Shenzhen-based company will enforce the Hong Kong court’s order. Hong Kong is a separate jurisdiction from mainland China where the majority of the assets are located.

Audacy Inc., a radio broadcaster reorganizing in US bankruptcy court, announced plans to cut a number of positions in its Pineapple Street podcast division, Bloomberg News reported. The reductions amount to 12 positions, or about 25% of the staff. A number of factors weighed on the company, including recent entertainment industry strikes, tighter marketing budgets and waning demand for limited-run, narrative series. “We are continuing to optimize our structure to align with the podcast market opportunity and set us up for continued growth,” the company said. “Unfortunately, that means reducing the size of some of our teams, and we have made the difficult decision to reduce a portion of our Pineapple staff.” Audacy, which counts New York’s 1010 WINS among its stations, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Texas this month after reaching a pact with creditors that would hand them ownership in exchange for slashing $1.6 billion of debt.

The U.S. government filed an objection on Monday to crypto lender Genesis Global’s chapter 11 plan, saying it effectively provides a legal shield to the company and a myriad of related parties, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The U.S. Trustee, the Justice Department’s bankruptcy monitor, said in a filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y., that the plan fails to meet certain requirements needed for confirmation under bankruptcy code. The plan also contains a provision that, in effect, serves as a “hidden third-party release,” the DOJ said. The crypto lender, which filed for bankruptcy in January of last year, is aiming to get its chapter 11 liquidation plan confirmed in mid-February. Genesis said it had more than 100,000 creditors and owed roughly $5.1 billion a few months before its bankruptcy filing. Lawyers for the company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. In its filing, the DOJ said the plan’s release provision is overly broad, appearing to effectively impose a “nonconsensual release on every person and every entity existing in the world.” The provision binds even those who didn’t check the opt-in box in the ballot, the DOJ said. In addition, the Genesis plan seeks to give the parties legal cover for actions taken before and after the bankruptcy filing, including Genesis’s out-of-court restructuring efforts, the filing said. “The court simply is not at the vantage point to make that judgment,” the DOJ said in the filing.

Puerto Rico’s bankrupt power utility and its creditors squared off in court Monday on whether bondholders have a legal right to the electricity provider’s future revenue, Bloomberg News reported. The debate before the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit centers around whether the island’s main energy supplier, Electric Power Authority or Prepa, must repay its creditors more than just the roughly $19 million sitting in reserve accounts that a bankruptcy court last year ruled was the bondholders’ only secured lien. At stake is the $9 billion Prepa owes to investors and fuel-line lenders while island residents endure some of the highest electricity rates in the U.S. amid frequent outages. The case is poised to affect revenue-backed municipal debt beyond Puerto Rico as water and sewer authorities, hospitals, toll roads, higher educational institutions and transit agencies all sell bonds with the pledge to repay investors from future revenue collections. The bondholders say they have a claim to Prepa’s current and future revenues based on Prepa’s trust agreement and under the Uniform Commercial Code — a set of state laws that govern U.S. commercial transactions. Puerto Rico’s financial oversight board, which is managing Prepa’s bankruptcy, disagrees, arguing the trust agreement only gave investors a secured lien on the reserve fund and nothing more.

Restoration Forest Products, a lumber company based in Arizona, filed for bankruptcy on Monday after the pandemic upended construction on a new production facility and a critical governmental contract fell through, Bloomberg News reported. The manufacturer listed liabilities of $367 million and assets of at least $100 million in court documents. The chapter 11 filing lets Restoration Forest Products keep operating while it seeks approval of its bankruptcy plan. The company, which produces everything from lumber to wood chips, has already struck a deal with stakeholders in which it intends to slash more than $300 million in debt. As part of the bankruptcy plan, Invesco has agreed to give the firm $95 million to help finance the court process, according to a statement. After emerging from bankruptcy, Invesco is slated to own the company along with its current equity sponsor, Lateral Investment Management. The plan and financing are subject to court approval. Restoration Forest Products touts its focus on sustainability because it works with the U.S. Forest Service to mitigate wildfire risk by clearing brush and other low-lying plants that can stoke flames. In early 2022, the company raised nearly $200 million in sustainability-linked bonds, according to its website. The bonds were issued by the Arizona Industrial Development Authority and were sold in two parts. About $113 million of Series A bonds were purchased by affiliates of Invesco while about $87 million of Series B bonds were bought by affiliates of Lateral.

Former NFL player Marcus Burley has filed for individual chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after his Saladworks franchise failed, the Charlotte Business Journal reported. Burley filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of North Carolina on Jan. 25. Burley’s filing states he has between $500,001 and $1 million in assets and at least $500,001 to $1 million in liabilities. He lists between one and 49 creditors. Liabilities included on a list of the top 20 creditors total $759,135. The two largest listed are Saladworks, which is owed $204,689, and a U.S. Small Business Administration Economic Injury Disaster Loan for $289,000. Burley, who played for the Seattle Seahawks and ended his career with the Houston Texans, talked with the Charlotte Business Journal in 2019 about his plan to bring Saladworks to Charlotte. He landed on a site for the customizable salad concept at 11318 N. Community House Road, in the Ballantyne Corners shopping center. Its opening coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic. Burley previously filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November 2022 to try and save the business. That filing claimed estimated liabilities of $500,001 to $1 million and assets of between $0 and $50,000. It listed between one and 49 creditors.

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.