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Car-Sharing Platform HyreCar Files for Bankruptcy

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HyreCar Inc., a publicly traded car-sharing platform, has filed for bankruptcy, partly blaming mounting legal fees from numerous lawsuits and investigations, including Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission probes into insider stock trading, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. HyreCar stock closed down 83% to 2 cents a share Monday. Its shares peaked at roughly $24 in June 2021. The Los Angeles-based company, which earlier this month warned that it might file for bankruptcy, has total assets of $16.5 million and total debts, all unsecured, of $18.4 million. The money is owed to trade creditors, its landlord and others. Last week it provided written notice to its landlord that it was ending its lease since all of its 59 employees have been working remotely. Holmes Motors Inc., which is affiliated with an equity owner who recently took a stake in the business, is offering to provide up to $5 million in bankruptcy financing, including $3.1 million on an interim basis. It will also serve as lead bidder in a sale process with a starting offer of roughly $7.8 million.

Illinois Investigating Drugmaker Akorn's Abrupt Closure

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State labor officials are investigating an Illinois-based pharmaceutical company’s decision to abruptly close all of its operations, including its out-of-state locations in New Jersey, New York and Switzerland, and to lay off hundreds of workers with almost no warning, the Associated Press reported. Akorn Operating Co., which is based in the northeastern Illinois city of Gurnee, told its 400 workers on Wednesday that it planned to file for bankruptcy and that they would be laid off within 24 hours. CEO Douglas Boothe told employees in a video that the company's leaders decided on the move after failing to find a buyer for the company. A spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Labor said Thursday that the agency is investigating the situation because Akorn didn’t file the required 60-day notice of mass layoffs or plant closures until Wednesday. The company developed, manufactured and marketed a wide array of branded and generic prescription drugs, including eye drops, injectables, oral liquids, inhalants and nasal sprays, according to its website. It also developed drugs for animals.
 

Corner Bakery Files for Bankruptcy After Pandemic Slashed Sales

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The Corner Bakery restaurant chain filed for bankruptcy this week, after the COVID-19 pandemic emptied out offices, bringing sharp declines in earnings and revenue, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Chief Executive Jignesh Pandya said a lender recently threatened a foreclosure sale, pushing the company into bankruptcy. The shift to working from home proved problematic for the chain as it generates a large part of its revenue from office catering and serving breakfast and lunch to commuters, according to court papers filed by Mr. Pandya on Wednesday. The Dallas-based chain has locations in about 20 states including California, Texas and Illinois. It was founded in 1991 and was acquired in 2020 by Pandya Restaurant Growth Brands LLC, which is operated by Mr. Pandya. Corner Bakery was negotiating with lenders who alleged it had defaulted on its loans. The company was in talks with its lenders to pay off more than $20 million, when they sold the loan to SSCP Restaurant Investors LLC, which then moved to begin a foreclosure sale of its assets, according to Mr. Pandya’s court filing. SSCP didn’t address Corner Bakery’s offer to make loan payments, according to Mr. Pandya.

LexaGene Files for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy

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LexaGene Holdings, together with subsidiaries LexaGene and Bionomics Diagnostics, announced on Friday that it has filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy, ceased operations, and laid off its staff, Genomeweb.com reported. Although the financial results of the liquidation are uncertain and beyond the company's control, LexaGene does not expect that liquidation proceeds realized by the bankruptcy will satisfy all creditors, nor that the company's shareholders will receive any distribution of those proceeds. LexaGene does not intend to undertake any proceedings under Canada's Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act, or similar Canadian proceedings. LexaGene's board of directors currently remains intact, and the company does not intend to seek voluntary delisting from the Canadian TSX Venture Exchange. The firm also trades on the OTC bulletin board in the US, where its stock trades at $.08 per share. The Beverly, Mass.-based company had adjusted its flagship MiQLab RT-PCR system from largely veterinary and food safety uses to COVID-19 testing early in 2021. Later that same year, it signed an agreement with the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command to evaluate MiQLab's use in detecting biothreats. Early last year, Meridian LGH had invested approximately $5 million in LexaGene, which upon closing, gave the financer approximately 13 percent of LexaGene's issued and outstanding common shares at that time.

Bankman-Fried Faces More Criminal Charges, Allegedly Hid Political Donations

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Sam Bankman-Fried was hit with new criminal charges on Thursday, in an expanded indictment accusing the founder of the now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange of conspiring to make more than 300 illegal political donations, Reuters reported, Reuters reported. Bankman-Fried now faces 12 criminal charges, including four for fraud and eight for conspiracy, up from eight charges in an earlier indictment, to which he has pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors have accused Bankman-Fried of stealing billions of dollars in FTX customer funds to plug losses at Alameda Research, his crypto-focused hedge fund. The new charges add to pressure on the 30-year-old former billionaire, who has seen two of his former top lieutenants plead guilty. Bankman-Fried is also trying to stay out of jail, after his online activity since his arrest prompted a federal judge to signal a willingness to revoke his $250 million bail package. His trial is slated for October.

Window Select Files for Bankruptcy, Has Nearly 1,000 Creditors, Filing Shows

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More than a month after announcing it would be filing for bankruptcy, Window Select entered chapter 11 bankruptcy Feb. 17 against nearly 1,000 creditors, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. North Carolina-based consulting firm Cogent Analytics, which has assumed management of the company, is still planning to fulfill contracts to more than 850 customers, according to a statement released by the company's communication team led by Mueller Communications. The decision to enter into chapter 11 bankruptcy comes after hundreds of customers claimed they'd been scammed after purchasing windows and doors that were never delivered. Over the past year, dozens of customers and contractors from across Wisconsin have filed suits against the company. Among the customers and vendors who are owed the largest amount of money are Illinois-based Climate Solutions Windows & Doors, who say Window Select owes them more than a million dollars for custom projects, according to the filing. Media companies iHeartMedia + Entertainment and Scripps Media, Inc. are both owed around $140,000; Sinclair Broadcast Group is owed about $12,000, according to the filing.

Three Arrows Liquidators Plan Steps to Start Selling Some Seized NFTs

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Liquidators of bankrupt hedge fund Three Arrows Capital Ltd. said they will take steps to sell some of the firm’s nonfungible tokens as part of their recovery efforts, Bloomberg News reported. “The purpose of the sale is to realize the value of the NFTs for the purposes of the liquidation,” Christopher Farmer, senior managing director at advisory firm Teneo wrote in a notice on Wednesday. The steps will commence after March 23, the notice said. The document did not provide details of the NFTs up for sale, but clarified that these do not include the popular “Starry Night” Portfolio. The latter is an NFT-focused fund that was started by Three Arrows co-founders Su Zhu and Kyle Davies during the crypto craze in 2021. Three Arrows collapsed last year after a series of mistimed bets and soured crypto prices triggered margin calls. It previously managed around $4 billion in assets. Its founders have since been sparring with the court-appointed liquidators charged in June with unwinding their assets. The liquidators have alleged lack of cooperation from the founders and recently subpoenaed them via their Twitter handles.

Cineworld Shares Dive on Reports of No Bidders for UK, U.S. Assets

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Shares of Cineworld slumped as much as 22% on Wednesday after media reports said the world's second-largest cinema operator had received 40 non-binding bids, but none for its UK and U.S. assets or nearing its $6 billion secured debt load, Reuters reported. The reports cited company counsel Joshua Sussberg's comments to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston on Tuesday, where he also said the initial bids received by a Feb. 16 deadline were all for the rest of Cineworld's global assets, mainly for theatres in central Europe, eastern Europe and Israel. In January, the company said that it would focus on a sale of the group as a whole rather than individual assets, months after the British cinema operator filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection in its bid to restructure debt and strengthen its balance sheet. The reports also said the company was proposing an April 10 deadline for final bids, with an auction, if necessary, to follow on April 17. A vote on restructuring has been set for May 21, with a court confirmation hearing tentatively set for May 30.

COVID Test Maker Lucira Goes Bankrupt as Demand for Kits Wanes

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Lucira Health Inc., a publicly traded maker of at-home COVID-19 tests, filed for chapter 11 protection on Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported. California-based Lucira listed assets of about $146 million and liabilities of about $85 million in its bankruptcy petition. The company will keep operating during bankruptcy as it seeks to sell itself, according to a statement. Lucira sells an at-home COVID test that provides “lab-quality results” in 30 minutes, according to its website. A single test is listed for $35 on the site. Declining COVID-19 restrictions crimped demand for the tests, squeezing Lucira, Chief Executive Officer Erik Engelson said in the statement. Slower-than-expected regulatory approval for a flu test kit also hurt the company, he said. Venture capital firm Eclipse Ventures holds about a 10% stake in Lucira, making it the company’s biggest shareholder, court papers show.

Lender Cerberus Calls Bankruptcy of Auto-Parts Maker Stanadyne ‘Unnecessary’

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Cerberus Capital Management LP said the bankruptcy filing of borrower Stanadyne LLC was “totally unnecessary” and surprising because an out-of-court restructuring was already in the works and chapter 11 costs will destroy value, WSJ Bankruptcy reported. The auto parts maker sought protection from creditors last week, saying it was “crippled” by the rising costs of $273 million of variable-rate debt owed to top creditor Cerberus after interest rates increased. During Stanadyne’s debut appearance Wednesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., Cerberus lawyer Laura Davis Jones said Stanadyne shouldn’t have filed for bankruptcy. “It took us by surprise,” she said, saying Cerberus was “a little misled.” Stanadyne faced no judgments or “liquidity wall,” nor was it in default at the time of the filing, Ms. Jones said. The company had basically agreed on a term sheet for an out-of-court restructuring, she said. Jones called the bankruptcy “value-destructive” because of the “significant fees” Stanadyne will incur in court. Judge John Dorsey asked Stanadyne representatives whether they wanted to respond. They declined, saying that it wasn’t the right time. Judge Dorsey weighed in, though. “At this point, I’ll say what my colleague Judge Shannon always says: ‘It is what it is, and we are where we are,’ so let’s just move forward,” Judge Dorsey said, referring to Judge Brendan Shannon. Stanadyne lawyer Kathryn Coleman said at the hearing that growth in the Jacksonville, N.C.-based company’s operating income couldn’t match the “explosion” in the company’s interest rates. Stanadyne intends to reorganize and will return to court seeking approval to hire an investment banker, she said.