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Bondholders of KKR & Co.’s Envision Healthcare Corp. have hired law firm White & Case LLP as the physician staffing company faces a looming payment deadline on its unsecured bonds, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Envision has a bond interest payment coming due Saturday and investors are concerned about whether it will pay because it is in technical default. The bondholder group, which formed recently, has said it represents a majority of the company’s outstanding bonds. Envision issued $1.2 billion of unsecured bonds due in 2026 in connection with its $6 billion purchase by KKR in 2018. Those bonds were recently quoted at around 4 cents on the dollar, according to market-data platform Solve, indicating that investors expect significant impairment. Envision has been in negotiations with some of its other creditors after missing a March 31 deadline to report its fourth-quarter financial results, triggering a technical default under the company’s loans.

U.S.-based online and catalogue retailer AmeriMark Interactive and six affiliated debtors have filed voluntary chapter 11 petitions in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware,Retail Insights reported. The six debtors are AMDRL Holdings, AmeriMark Intermediate Sub, AmeriMark Direct, AmeriMark Intermediate Holdings, Dr Leonard’s Healthcare and LTD Commodities. The Cleveland, Ohio-based company sells home goods, clothing and health care goods mainly via catalogues and online. Before officially filing the bankruptcy cases, the associated debtors retained an investment banker and promoted their assets for sale but have not received offers from one or more buyers. AmeriMark has assured that all the affiliated companies will fulfil the pending orders that were shipped before the beginning of bankruptcy cases. In the case of orders that were not shipped before the bankruptcy filings, the customers will be exempted from being charged.

A Johnson & Johnson unit said cancer victims who refuse to settle with the company are attempting to intimidate other claimants from signing onto an $8.9 billion deal to end lawsuits over allegedly tainted baby powder, Bloomberg News reported. The health-care giant is trying for the second time to use the bankruptcy of its LTL Management to round up support for a plan that would settle more than 40,000 lawsuits that allege baby powder contained talc that was tinged with asbestos, a toxic substance. LTL has the backing of 60,000 victims, or about two thirds of all claimants, lawyer Gregory M. Gordon said in federal court on Tuesday. The company must get to 75% to have a chance at winning approval for the deal from U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan. The holdouts are working to block the company from reaching that goal, Gordon said. As the bankruptcy goes forward, LTL and J&J will present evidence to “show an aggressive, concerted effort by the plaintiff firms on this committee to scuttle this agreement through threats and intimidation directed at LTL, J&J” and plaintiffs who support the plan, Gordon said.

National CineMedia Inc., the biggest movie-theater advertising business in North America, said on Tuesday it filed for bankruptcy protection and had entered into a restructuring agreement with its lenders, Reuters reported. This adds to the growing list of challenges facing the cinema industry, which has been hit hard by the pandemic and a lack of major film releases, and follows a similar move by Cineworld, which filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection in September. In an effort to de-leverage its balance sheet, NCM said it entered into an agreement with its secured lenders to convert its debt into equity. The company will receive an ownership interest of about 14% in the restructured entity, it said. Despite some progress in post-pandemic recovery, industry executives have cautioned that the sector is still a long way from returning to its pre-pandemic heights, with theaters and studios facing significant disruptions in production and attendance.

Johnson & Johnson’s second attempt to resolve talc lawsuits in bankruptcy should be dismissed as an unprecedented fraud designed to deny plaintiffs just compensation, lawyers representing cancer victims argued in a Monday court filing, Reuters reported. The attorneys contend J&J defied a January appeals court rejection of its first attempt to settle the litigation, noting that a J&J subsidiary refiled for chapter 11 about two hours after a court dismissed its first bankruptcy. The lawyers blasted the move as the "largest intentional fraudulent transfer in United States history." Johnson & Johnson is offering to settle all claims for $8.9 billion, up from its original offer of $2 billion. Monday's legal broadside challenged the company’s latest gambit as an unlawful abuse of the chapter 11 system, echoing earlier objections to its first effort to resolve the lawsuits. In October 2021, J&J executed a controversial legal maneuver known as a Texas two-step. The tactic involved dividing its consumer business in two and then offloading tens of thousands of talc lawsuits onto a newly created subsidiary, which almost immediately filed for chapter 11. The goal: to halt the avalanche of lawsuits and force plaintiffs into a global settlement in bankruptcy court. The plaintiffs allege J&J's talc-based Baby Powder and similar cosmetic products caused ovarian cancer and mesothelioma. The company maintains its talc products are safe.

Cineworld said today that it had filed a reorganization plan in a Texas bankruptcy court that will effectively wipe out existing shareholdings, sending its stock to an all-time low, Reuters reported. The filing formalizes a deal laid out on April 3 that includes plans to cut debt by about $4.53 billion and raise $2.26 billion in funds to emerge from bankruptcy. It does not provide for any recovery for its existing shareholders, the group said. Shares in the world's second-largest cinema chain operator fell to 1.5 pence on Tuesday, and have lost more than 99% since it listed in 2007. Cineworld, which placed a majority of its business under U.S. chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September, last week dropped plans to sell its businesses in the U.S., the UK, and Ireland after failing to find a buyer.The group's chapter 11 companies are seeking to confirm the plan on an "expeditious timeline", Cineworld said, adding that it continues to operate its global business and cinemas as usual without interruption.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) sent letters on Sunday to 14 of the largest depositors with Silicon Valley Bank that raised concerns over the failed bank’s relationship with some of the venture capitalists and tech founders who made up much of its customer base, Bloomberg News reported. In letters reviewed by Bloomberg that were sent to companies including Circle Internet Financial, BILL Holdings Inc., BlockFi Inc. and Eiger BioPharmaceuticals Inc., Warren and Ocasio-Cortez asked questions about the nature of their connections with SVB. Those included the length of their relationship and the amount of money they had deposited with the bank, which collapsed in March after investors and depositors tried to pull out $42 billion in a single day. The two Democrats, who have been vocal critics of SVB and its executives, also want to know whether board members, executives or investors had received special benefits, such as lines of credits, from SVB. In particular, the lawmakers are interested in reports that said SVB coddled some of its largest venture capitalists and showered them with special perks, and in return the VC firms gave the bank access to huge unsecured sources of short-term funding, the letters said. The lawmakers asked for the answers to these questions to be provided by April 24.

A bankruptcy judge yesterday dismissed the chapter 11 case of Legacy Lofts on St. Mary’s LLC after the townhouse developer failed to comply with court requirements, the San Antonio Express-News reported. It had filed for bankruptcy protection in December to stop a foreclosure on a portion the property along North St. Mary’s and East Euclid avenues where it built 19 townhouse units. Since entering bankruptcy, Legacy Lofts had not filed monthly operating reports or paid quarterly fees as required, according to James Rose Jr., an attorney for the U.S. Trustee’s office. Legacy Lofts also failed to file a reorganization plan, Rose told Chief U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Craig Gargotta during a Monday hearing. On March 20, Rose filed a motion to have the case dismissed or converted to a chapter 7 liquidation. Allen DeBard, Legacy Lofts' bankruptcy lawyer, did not oppose the motion to dismiss the case.

Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drug maker, will buy the assets of at-home COVID-flu test developer Lucira Health Inc. following an auction Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, the San Francisco Business Times reported. After meeting with the unsecured creditors' committee, Emeryville-based Lucira declared Pfizer, the manufacturer of a critical COVID-19 vaccine and drug, as the successful bidder. The next highest bidder was Pearsanta Inc., a recently formed subsidiary of Richmond, Virginia-based Aditxt Inc., according to a bankruptcy court filing. Court filings did not disclose how much the companies bid for Lucira, which was the first company to win Food and Drug Administration emergency use authorization in late 2020 for an at-home, do-it-yourself molecular diagnostic test for COVID. Lucira filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February as it awaited FDA approval of a combined COVID-flu test for which it had been trying to take to market for months. Two days after the bankruptcy filing, FDA officials granted emergency use authorization, or EUA, for the combined test. Pfizer's purchase of Lucira's assets is scheduled to be heard April 13 before Bankruptcy Court Judge Mary F. Walrath.

The former parent companies of Maxus Energy Corp. reached a $575 million settlement on Thursday to end a longstanding bankruptcy-court lawsuit over who should pay to clean up the contaminated Passaic River in New Jersey, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Argentine energy company YPF SA has agreed to pay half of the settlement, according to a securities filing by YPF on Friday. Spain’s Repsol SA, another former owner of Maxus, has agreed to pay the other half, a company representative said. The settlement amounts to a fraction of the $14 billion that the remnants of Maxus have sought, although it isn’t unusual for a party demanding large damages to end up with a much smaller settlement amount. Occidental Chemical Corp., which shares liabilities for the Passaic cleanup with Maxus, also agreed to drop all claims against YPF and Repsol related to Maxus, the Passaic River and other areas subject to environmental remediation, according to YPF’s filing.