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Bankrupt cryptolender Voyager Digital said a recent joint proposal from FTX and Alameda Ventures was a "low-ball bid dressed up as a white knight rescue" and alleged the plan would disrupt its bankruptcy process, Reuters reported. Under the partial bailout plan announced on Friday, crypto trading firm Alameda would purchase all of Voyager's digital assets and digital-asset loans, except the loans to bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. Voyager's customers could then receive some of those funds if they chose to open an account with cryptoexchange FTX. Such customers could either withdraw the cash balance immediately or use it to make purchases on FTX's platform. Voyager, in a court filing dated July 24, said the proposal was "designed to generate publicity for itself rather than value for Voyager's customers." "We submitted what we think is a generous proposal; we aren't taking fees on this, just letting customers get their remaining assets back promptly," Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX and Alameda, said in an emailed statement. "It appears that Voyager's consultants are attempting to stall out the process, increasing their fees," Bankman-Fried added. The company filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this month. In June, it had signed an agreement with Alameda for a revolving line of credit.

Cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried made an offer to restructure Voyager Digital Ltd.’s assets that will allow customers of the bankrupt crypto brokerage firm to recover a portion of their investments, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. FTX Trading Ltd., along with its U.S. subsidiary and Alameda Research, all majority-owned by Bankman-Fried, said the deal would provide Voyager customers an opportunity to get back at least some of their cryptoholdings, according to an FTX announcement on Friday. Under the proposal, Voyager customers would have the opportunity to start new accounts at FTX with an opening cash balance funded by distributions of an unspecified amount from the Voyager bankruptcy estate, according to the press release. Voyager customers can also immediately withdraw the cash from the new FTX accounts. The group offered $15 million in cash for Voyager customer information and an undisclosed amount for the assets that would be determined at the price two days before the closing, according to a Friday letter from the buyers to Voyager attached to the announcement. The prospective buyers didn’t disclose what portion of their assets participating customers would receive in the initial cash balance. FTX said Voyager would maintain the right to any recovery on a roughly $650 million loan to Three Arrows Capital Ltd., the crypto hedge fund in liquidation, and use the funds for additional payouts to customers.

The liquidation trust for cryptocurrency lender Cred sued Uphold Friday, alleging that the cryptoexchange masterminded the product that ultimately caused Cred to seek bankruptcy protection in 2020, Coindesk.com reported. That product, CredEarn, offered retail investors high yields until the investments Cred made with depositor money soured. Although not as high-profile, Cred’s bankruptcy case holds a number of parallels to those of Celsius and Voyager, two cryptoinvestment platforms that filed for chapter 11 protection this month. The drama surrounding Cred’s bankruptcy – who is to blame, whether and how depositors are to be repaid – may provide insight into how these more recent cases could play out. The Cred case is also a reminder that centralized financial intermediaries have, for years, been drawing investors into the "decentralized” world of cryptocurrency through flashy marketing and seemingly too-good-to-be-true promises of high interest rates. These past few months are not the first time that the risks of what one might call CeDeFi – centralized decentralized finance – have been laid bare for consumers (and regulators) to see. Cred’s liquidators are seeking at least $783 million in damages in the case filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

Revlon Inc. is facing pushback to its proposed $1.4 billion bankruptcy loan, with its official creditors’ committee opposing the loan and calling the cosmetic company’s case a “mess” in a Wednesday court filing, Reuters reported. The bankruptcy financing would hand too much power to a coalition of lenders, which hold about half of the company’s $3.5 billion debt, at a time of great uncertainty about the company’s future and who should control it, the creditors’ committee said in a filing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. "No one today knows what Revlon is worth," and the lender coalition's proposed financing is an effort to "seize the company before its value has been determined," the committee wrote. Revlon filed for chapter 11 in June, saying its high debt load left it too cash-poor to make timely payments to critical vendors in its cosmetics supply chain. It began its bankruptcy case by borrowing $375 million from the lender coalition, and it will seek approval of the rest of the loan at a bankruptcy hearing next week before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David Jones. The lender coalition, known as the BrandCo Lenders, includes private-equity and hedge funds such as Ares Management and Oak Hill Advisors. The creditors’ committee argued in Wednesday's filing that the same lender coalition had already “fleeced” other Revlon creditors in a 2020 transaction that allowed Revlon to take on more debt while transferring its brands and intellectual property assets to a different Revlon subsidiary.

A Delaware judge ordered Armstrong World Industries Inc., a maker of walls and ceilings, to let the new buyers of its bankrupt former unit Armstrong Flooring Inc. continue to use its name and trademarks, clearing the way for the flooring company to sell its assets out of chapter 11, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Judge Mary Walrath of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., told publicly traded Armstrong World to sign over the right to use the corporate name and related trademarks, handing a win to Armstrong Flooring and the companies buying its assets. Armstrong Flooring, which was spun off from Armstrong World in 2016, filed for chapter 11 in May, saying it couldn’t raise prices enough to counter supply-chain disruptions and higher costs. A dispute over the brand name had threatened to derail imminent asset sales valued at $200 million, according to Armstrong Flooring, which said Armstrong World was playing hardball about allowing the buyers to keep using the business name. Armstrong Flooring sued Armstrong World earlier this week, seeking a court order granting buyers the trademark rights. The judge said in an emergency hearing Friday that the harm that would result from failing to close the sales outweighs any harm to Armstrong World from allowing the buyers to use the Armstrong name.

Celsius Network LLC has a roughly $1.2 billion hole in its balance sheet, with the majority of its liabilities owed to the cryptocurrency lender’s users, according to a Thursday filing by Chief Executive Alex Mashinsky, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Of Celsius’s $5.5 billion in total liabilities, more than $4.7 billion is owed to Celsius’s users, according to the declaration Mr. Mashinsky submitted to bankruptcy court. Users deposited their cryptocurrencies on the platform in exchange for high yields, and Celsius lent out and invested user deposits. Celsius stopped all customer withdrawals a month before it filed for bankruptcy, finding that as the value of cryptocurrencies collapsed, it would be detrimental to the business to allow the withdrawals to continue as normal, according to Mr. Mashinsky. Celsius’s terms of use raise questions about whether users may be able to recover their cryptocurrency deposits or collateral. Mr. Mashinsky said the basis of the contract between Celsius and its users explicitly stated that the company has ownership rights over customer deposits, as well as the right to lend, sell, transfer or use them for any period of time.

Pittsburgh-area retailer Altmeyer’s has filed for bankruptcy after eight decades of supplying home goods in the region, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. Robert Altmeyer, the fourth in a line of Altmeyers to run the family business, filed chapter 7 bankruptcy paperwork yesterday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. The company has been selling bedding, bath and kitchen items, holiday merchandise and other household products in the Pittsburgh area since the 1940s. “It is with extreme sadness and disappointment that Altmeyer’s has been forced to liquidate its operations after serving as a reliable source of linens and home goods to several western Pennsylvania communities over the past eight decades,” Altmeyer said in a statement. Altmeyer said that several factors led to the decision, including tough competition from e-commerce, sourcing issues and inflation. He said that expecting these trends to reverse enough to restore profitability to the business “wasn’t realistic.” Filings show 125 creditors and estimated liabilities between $100,001 and $500,000. Mr. Altmeyer said he plans to distribute revenues from store liquidation to creditors.

A commercial court recognized the dissolution of Mexico's Credito Real and ordered its judicial liquidation, the troubled payroll lender said in a filing yesterday, Reuters reported. Credito Real, reeling from a bond default, said in June it was aiming for an orderly restructuring of its debt. Mexico's stock exchange suspended the firm's listing last month after the company struggled to meet its financial obligations. Shares in Credito Real fell more than 95% between January 2022 and its suspension. The company's board resigned in June after it cut ties with restructuring and legal advisors. Credito Real in February defaulted on a 170 million Swiss franc ($183 million) bond, prompting credit rating cuts by S&P and Fitch Ratings and a debt restructuring process.

U.S. crypto lender Celsius Network said yesterday that it had filed for bankruptcy in New York, becoming the latest victim in the cryptocurrency sector of a dramatic plunge in token prices, Reuters reported. New Jersey-based Celsius froze withdrawals last month, citing "extreme" market conditions, cutting off access to savings for individual investors and sending tremors through the crypto market. In a court filing at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for Southern District of New York, Celsius estimated its assets and liabilities as between $1 billion to $10 billion, with more than 100,000 creditors. The company has $167 million in cash on hand. "This is the right decision for our community and company," said Celsius co-founder and Chief Executive Alex Mashinsky. Crypto lenders such as Celsius boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic, drawing depositors with high interest rates and easy access to loans rarely offered by traditional banks. They lent out tokens to mostly institutional investors, making a profit from the difference. But the lenders' business model came under scrutiny after a sharp sell-off in the crypto market spurred by the collapse of major tokens terraUSD and luna in May.