The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank has created a new worry for many small businesses: what to do with their cash, the Wall Street Journal reported. Some owners of small and midsize businesses are moving funds to other institutions, splitting them between multiple banks, moving cash into money-market funds or buying Treasurys. Others are more closely reviewing the finances of their banks, while some entrepreneurs are even thinking about the potential risks for key partners and customers. Responding to the recent banking-industry turmoil is particularly challenging for small businesses, which typically don’t have large finance teams or sophisticated cash-management strategies. Small-business owners with conservative habits often keep lots of cash on hand as a cushion. Loan restrictions can make it tough to split that cash among multiple institutions. “I think we need to analyze banks just like they analyze us,” said Brent Frederick, owner of Minneapolis-based Jester Concepts, which has five restaurants including Butcher & the Boar and a concession operation that includes food trucks, a food trailer and stadium locations. “What is the bank’s core value? What do their balance sheets look like?”
The judge in Core Scientific's bankruptcy case approved a settlement with the bitcoin miner's exclusive energy contract negotiator under which Core Scientific will transfer more than $20 million worth of electrical equipment to the supplier, CoinDesk.com reported. The dispute relates to two facilities in west Texas that were supposed to cumulatively bring 1 gigawatt (GW) of power capacity to Core Scientific's portfolio of assets. Starting in the summer of 2021, Priority Power Management was hired as the miner's "exclusive energy manager and consultant," with responsibilities including negotiating power contracts and the build out of the two west Texas sites, according to a declaration filed with the court from Michael Bros, the miner's senior vice president of capital markets and acquisitions. However, as of May 2022, after "it became clear that the [two west Texas] facilities would not receive the anticipated power load," Core Scientific stopped making various payments to Priority Power Management, Bros said. Neither firm immediately replied to CoinDesk's request for comment as to why the power was not delivered. The miner also halted debt payments in October 2022 as it was running low on cash. In December, it filed for chapter 11 protection. Due to the work it had performed for Core Scientific up to the bankruptcy filing, Priority Power Management claimed it was owed about $30 million in the proceedings.
Mountain Express Oil Co. has filed for voluntary chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, CSPDailyNews.comreported. The fuel distribution and convenience-store retailer intends to achieve a comprehensive restructuring, and it expects to continue to conduct business throughout the process. Mountain Express-owned or affiliated fuel centers, travel centers, c-stores and retail operations are maintaining normal operations, it said. A restructuring “will strengthen the company’s fuel distribution business, dealer network and retail business,” it said. Mountain Express is in discussions with its secured lenders regarding a commitment of debtor-in-possession financing, which it said will provide additional liquidity and “assure its ability to meet its post-petition obligations in the ordinary course of business.” To help fund and protect its operations, Mountain Express intends to use cash collateral, upon approval from the court, along with normal operating cash flows, as the company pursues the “value-maximizing” restructuring and seeks to emerge from bankruptcy in a timely manner. Founded in 2000, Mountain Express Oil serves 828 fueling centers and 27 travel centers across 27 states. It has established relationships with major oil companies including ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Chevron, Texaco and Sunoco, among other major suppliers. Mountain Express also has a dealer joint venture with Pilot Co., Knoxville, Tennessee Since 2013, Mountain Express has distributed more than 1.1 billion gallons of fuel, it said.
One of the Pittsburgh region’s largest minority-owned businesses has filed for bankruptcy protection at the same time that it faces a sexual harassment lawsuit involving a minor, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. Rice Enterprises, the operator of eight McDonald’s locations across the Pittsburgh region, filed the chapter 11 petition last week in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. The documents signed by Rice Enterprises LLC’s sole member, Michele Rice, show that the bankruptcy was filed to preserve the company’s franchise agreements and leases. It is also to “restructure its debt obligations, provide breathing space, time to reduce litigation expenses and maximize the value of its estate.” The attorney representing Rice Enterprises, Kirk Burkley of the Pittsburgh law firm Bernstein-Burkley, P.C., said the bankruptcy filing will not affect the restaurants’ operations and all 435 jobs are safe.
Troubled companies across industries have been filing for bankruptcy at a faster pace this year than last, a boomlet that follows a period of record inflation and one of the quickest rate-hike cycles in U.S. history, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Many of the year’s corporate bankruptcy filers have attributed their plight to persistent price pressures driving up the cost of goods, coupled with continued interest-rate hikes that make it more difficult to refinance debt. Fears of economic instability deepened after the collapse of two regional banks and turbulence at First Republic Bank and Credit Suisse Group AG. This year, a total 753 commercial chapter 11 cases had been filed by the end of February, a 76% increase from 429 filings in the same two-month period last year, according to data and services provider Epiq Bankruptcy. The uptick came before the recent bank failures. Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank were taken over by regulators over the weekend. SVB Financial Group, parent company of SVB, filed for chapter 11 on Friday to ease a sale of its remaining assets after the core of its business was seized by federal regulators. Major U.S. banks provided First Republic with a $30 billion lifeline to try to quell panic over the bank failures. Before those failures, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told lawmakers the Fed was prepared to increase the pace of rate hikes to win its war on inflation. But investors this week are betting the Fed will change course and pause further rate increases. But even if rate hikes are paused or slowed, their rapid rise in the past year has made it harder to refinance at cheap levels. And borrowers saddled with a lot of debt are in worse shape. “Zero percent interest hides a multitude of sins,” said John Penn, chair of Perkins Coie LLP’s bankruptcy and restructuring practice. “Once the interest rates start ticking upwards, and liquidity starts drying up, there are some folks that don’t know how to operate in that environment.” While forecasts of future waves of chapter 11 filings have at times proven incorrect, a confluence of macroeconomic factors are contributing to corporate distress, including the rising cost of capital, said Amy Quackenboss, executive director at the American Bankruptcy Institute. “Businesses which in the last 10 years have taken advantage of low interest rates are having trouble refinancing their debt load,” Ms. Quackenboss said. And some wobbly companies are still facing supply-chain problems that drive up the cost of goods, she said. Now, however, they are forced to cope with those problems without the government assistance available during the pandemic, she added. Read more.
SVB Financial Group, the one-time parent company of the failed Silicon Valley Bank, is filing for bankruptcy protection. The company’s chapter 11 petition on Friday is another development in a banking crisis that’s shaken stock markets and applied pointed questions to banks’ financial health. After bankruptcy cases dropped off during the pandemic, they have been making a comeback this year for both businesses and consumers, according to a MarketWatch.com analysis. “You are seeing companies that are so sick, it’s unavoidable,” said Al Togut, partner at Togut, Segal & Segal, a boutique law firm specializing in corporate bankruptcy. Companies that would otherwise be seeking bankruptcy protection are benefiting from liquidity in the financial system, Togut added. “That’s not to say they don’t need restructuring, because they do. And judgment day will come,” Togut added. Pamela Foohey, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law where her specialties include consumer bankruptcy, echoed Togut’s sentiments, saying “judgment day” is also coming for consumers. But that might take time. Consumers often regard bankruptcy as a last resort, and struggle to repay debts for two or three years before turning to bankruptcy court, she said. Read more.
Infowars conspiracy broadcaster Alex Jones, who faces more than $1.4 billion in legal damages for defaming the families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims, has devised a new way to taunt them: wriggling out of paying them the money they are owed, the New York Times reported. Jones, who has an estimated net worth as high as $270 million, declared both business and personal bankruptcy last year as the families won historic verdicts in two lawsuits over his lies about the 2012 shooting that killed 20 first graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. A New York Times review of financial documents and court records filed over the past year found that Jones has transferred millions of dollars in property, cash and business deals to family and friends, including to a new company run by his former personal trainer, all potentially out of reach of creditors. He has also spent heavily on luxuries, including $80,000 on a private jet, bodyguards and a rented villa while he was in Connecticut to testify at a trial last fall.
SVB Financial Group said today that it filed chapter 11 protection to seek buyers for its assets, days after its former unit Silicon Valley Bank was taken over by U.S. regulators, Reuters reported. The move to commence bankruptcy proceedings comes as emergency measures to shore up confidence have so far failed to dispel worries about a financial contagion. Californian regulators shuttered Silicon Valley Bank last Friday, making it the largest collapse since Washington Mutual went bust during the financial crisis of 2008. The tech lender was forced to sell a portfolio of treasuries and mortgage-backed securities to Goldman Sachs at a $1.8 billion loss after a rise in yields eroded value. To plug that hole, it attempted to raise $2.25 billion in common equity and preferred convertible stock but spooked clients pulled deposits from the bank that led to $42 billion of outflows in a day. Earlier this week, the defunct lender said it was planning to explore strategic alternatives for its businesses including the holding company, SVB Capital and SVB Securities. SVB Securities and SVB Capital's funds and general partner entities are not included in the chapter 11 filing, the company said on Friday, adding it planned to proceed with the process to evaluate alternatives for the businesses, as well its other assets and investments.
Bankruptcy Judge Michael Wiles declined to delay the $1.3 billion sale of crypto lender Voyager Digital to Binance.US, saying that Voyager customers should not be forced to wait out a challenge by the Department of Justice that is unlikely to succeed, Reuters reported. Judge Wiles ruled on Wednesday that the department had mischaracterized the scope of legal protections he had granted to Voyager employees for actions to carry out the sale and rebalance its crypto portfolio. Judge Wiles, who is overseeing Voyager's chapter 11 process, approved its bankruptcy plan last week. The government can "can step in at any time" if it believes illegal transactions are happening, but has not presented any evidence that Voyager's crypto transactions are illegal, Judge Wiles said. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and the Office of the U.S. Trustee, the Justice Department's bankruptcy watchdog, both filed appeals last week. They argued that the protections could rubber stamp crypto transactions that might be illegal under U.S. securities laws.
Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX made transfers of about $2.2 billion to company founder Sam Bankman-Fried through related entities, the company's new management said, Reuters reported. Overall more than $3.2 billion was transferred through payments and loans to company founders and key employees, FTX said in a statement on Wednesday. These payments were made chiefly from Alameda Research hedge fund, FTX said, adding that it made these disclosures by filing schedules and statements of financial affairs with the bankruptcy court. The crypto exchange said the transfers did not include over $240 million spent to purchase luxury property in the Bahamas, political and charitable donations made directly by the FTX debtors, and substantial transfers to non-debtor units in the Bahamas and other jurisdictions.
The city of Chester, Pa., can proceed to restructure in bankruptcy despite objections from its own elected officials and its biggest bondholder, a bankruptcy judge ruled, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The city “satisfies all the statutory requirements” as a municipality to restructure under chapter 9 bankruptcy, Judge Ashely Chan of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Philadelphia said in a written opinion on Tuesday. Chester’s filing in November marked the largest U.S. municipal bankruptcy since the 2017 filing by Puerto Rico. The city has struggled to keep up with its debt payments, including to Preston Hollow Community Capital LLC, which holds $19.2 million of the city’s 2017 municipal bonds. Preston Hollow objected to the city’s chapter 9 eligibility, arguing that the city failed to engage in the good-faith negotiations with creditors required by the bankruptcy code. On Tuesday Judge Chan disagreed, saying the record shows the city made efforts to negotiate with its major creditors, including its three unions and Preston Hollow, before filing for bankruptcy. Chester’s mayor and city council members also questioned the validity of the bankruptcy petition, asserting that the filing wasn’t voluntary because the city’s elected officials “did not authorize” it.
