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Lenders to ABC Carpet & Home, the more than century-old New York luxury home goods retailer, are mulling a distressed takeover of the company after financial hits from COVID-19 and real estate problems left it unable to pay its bills, Bloomberg News reported. An offer last year from private-equity firm MHR Fund Management fell through this April after reaching advanced stages. An investor group with experience in home and carpet retailing may take over the company through a bankruptcy filing or an out-of-court restructuring. New York-based ABC Carpet & Home, which is working with advisers from B. Riley Financial Inc. and Greenberg Traurig, has been seeking new financing or a buyer for over a year since the planned private-equity sale fell through. The company’s popular restaurant business, including ABC Kitchen, wouldn’t be affected by a restructuring.

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP laid out a defense of its chapter 11 plan, containing a multibillion-dollar settlement with its owners, before a high-stakes bankruptcy trial pitting the company against certain government authorities, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Purdue said its proposal provides the most money possible to fight the opioid crisis and rebutted legal challenges from nine states, the District of Columbia as well as the Justice Department’s bankruptcy unit in a 232-page legal brief filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y. The filing, submitted on Thursday, previews legal arguments that will be central to the trial, scheduled to start next week. If Purdue prevails and its plan is approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain, the business would emerge from bankruptcy as a new company tasked with addressing the epidemic and providing treatment for opioid addiction and overdoses. The plan is backed by most states and is broadly supported by committees representing the interests of opioid victims and local governments. Purdue filed for bankruptcy in September 2019, seeking refuge from lawsuits blaming it for fueling the opioid crisis. The company last year pleaded guilty to federal felonies over its sale and marketing of opioids. On Thursday, Purdue said the plan it forged since its chapter 11 filing dedicates most of its assets “to funding critical and much needed opioid abatement programs in communities that have long been impacted by the opioid crisis.”

SVXR Inc., an early-stage company making automated inspection equipment for the semiconductor industry, is planning to sell itself out of bankruptcy to competitor Bruker Nano Inc. for $11.8 million and said it needs to do so quickly, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Formerly known as Silicon Valley X-Ray, privately held SVXR filed for chapter 11 Wednesday with roughly $10.5 million in debt, including $517,000 owed to the U.S. Small Business Administration and $8.2 million owed to secured bondholders. The company’s main product, the X200, allows customers to monitor and detect defects as semiconductors are being made, according to court papers. Founded in 2013, SVXR has invested heavily in its technology and has never been cash-flow positive, Chief Executive Officer Daniel Trepanier said in a Thursday court filing. He said SVXR sells the X200, data analytics tools and warranty services to “six key customers that are well-known leaders in the semiconductor fabrication industry.” SVXR has been pursuing a strategic transaction or debt refinancing for nearly a year, he said, noting that the company is in default on its secured debt obligations. The company’s backers include Samsung Venture Investment Corp. and Firsthand Technology Value Fund Inc., according to court papers filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in San Jose.

Trucking, logistics and airfreight companies are collectively owed hundreds of thousands of dollars after a Texas freight forwarder filed for chapter 11 protection last this week, FreightWaves reported. Atlantic Worldwide Shipping LLC of Houston filed its petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas on Tuesday. In its filing, the freight forwarder lists its assets as between $100,000 and $500,000 and its liabilities as between $1 million and $10 million. The company states that it has up to 49 creditors and maintains that funds will be available for distribution to unsecured creditors. The freight forwarder’s list of secured creditors includes North Mill Credit Trust of Mill Valley, California, owed nearly $87,000 for a 2020 Freightliner and the U.S. Small Business Administration, headquartered in Washington, D.C., owed $149,000. Among Atlantic Worldwide Shipping’s top nonpriority unsecured creditors are: Al Shamali International Freight Services LLC of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, owed more than $1.4 million; logistics payment platform PayCargo LLC of Miami, owed over $745,000; and CaroTrans International of Houston, owed more than $18,000. It also owes Landstar Systems Inc. of Jacksonville, Florida, nearly $8,000. According to Atlantic Worldwide Shipping’s financials, its gross revenues from Jan. 1 until its bankruptcy filing date are over $450,000. Its petition states the company made nearly $2.1 million in 2020 and around $2.2 million in 2019.

Bankrupt units of a Mexican and Colombian payroll lender have secured court approval to access part of a $45 million loan to fund operations during their chapter 11 case after agreeing to install a chief restructuring officer, Reuters reported. During a virtual hearing on Wednesday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kate Stickles in Wilmington, Del., signed off on Alpha Latam Management LLC's request to tap $17.5 million of the full loan. A hearing on the rest of the loan will be held at a later date. ALM is an affiliate of Mexico’s Alpha Holding SA de CV, which is not part of the chapter 11 case. ALM and certain affiliates, which control Alpha's Colombian operations, filed for bankruptcy on Sunday with $768 million in debt following accounting errors that caused creditors to declare defaults. The bankruptcy loan is being provided by existing noteholders. Judge Stickles’ approval followed an initial hearing on Tuesday in which the noteholders, represented by Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, said ALM must bring in an independent chief restructuring officer to guide the bankruptcy and sale process before they would commit to the loan. The last-minute demand threatened to scuttle the loan deal, but the parties reached an agreement by Wednesday.

The process of decommissioning the shuttered Limetree Bay refinery in the U.S. Virgin Islands will take several months, the company’s owner told a Texas bankruptcy court on Monday, Reuters report. Limetree Bay, which filed last month for chapter 11 protection, has engaged investment bank Jefferies Financial Group Inc to run the sale of the plant, likely in its entirety. Owners of the facility in St. Croix burned through $4.1 billion to resurrect what was once the largest refinery in the Western Hemisphere, hoping to take advantage of rising global demand. Instead, the refinery only operated for three months before U.S. environmental regulators shut it in May due to foul odors and noxious releases that harmed nearby communities. “We probably will completely shut the plant down,” Elizabeth Green, lead bankruptcy attorney for Limetree, said in a hearing on Monday. “But I’m not 100% sure that decision has been made.” Limetree would have needed at least $1 billion to finish a massive overhaul to continue as a viable operation, according to bankers, lawyers and restructuring specialists involved in the case who spoke to Reuters in July.

Creditors said that Alpha defaulted earlier this year when the privately held nonbank lender disclosed accounting errors in its Mexican segment, sending its bond prices tumbling, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Alpha has $768.4 million in debt, mostly unsecured bonds, and has lined up $45 million in emergency financing to get through chapter 11 proceedings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. The Mexican segment didn’t file for bankruptcy. Alpha asked the bankruptcy court for permission “to continue operating the Colombian business without interruption to ensure that collections of all outstanding loans continue.” Founded in 2011, Alpha extends credit to government and private-sector employees in Mexico and Colombia. Customers repay the loans through payroll deductions. The company also makes small-business loans. Alpha borrows money from bondholders and uses it to lend at interest rates that average 24.4% annually in Colombia. In April, the company said that there were errors in the 2018 and 2019 financial statements for its Mexican business and that it would have to revise them. Soon after, creditors sent default notices to Alpha for, among other things, failing to accurately report its finances.

Shareholders in Mallinckrodt, the Dublin-based but U.S.-run drugmaker in the middle of a bankruptcy reorganization, are being urged by a leading corporate advisory firm to vote against some directors as a parting rebuke over its handling of the U.S. opioid crisis and executive pay, the Irish Times reported. Mallinckrodt filed for bankruptcy in Delaware last October as the company was overwhelmed by lawsuits accusing it of deceptively marketing opioids. The company is pursuing a U.S. court-supervised chapter 11 reorganization that would set up a $1.6 billion trust to resolve opioid-related claims with states, local governments and private individuals. The plan, supported by certain creditors and subject to broader votes by early September, would see unsecured bondholders take control of the company, some $1.3 billion of debt being eliminated and general unsecured creditors split $150 million in cash. Existing shareholders are set to be wiped out by the debt restructuring. Glass Lewis, an influential shareholder advisory firm on corporate governance, is calling on investors to vote against the re-election of board members Martin Carroll and Kneeland Youngblood at the group’s annual general meeting in Dublin next month. Both have been members of Mallinckrodt committees covering governance and compliance since the company floated in New York in 2013. Almost 500,000 people died from overdoses involving opioids, including prescription and illicit drugs, in the US in the 20 years to 2019, according to figures from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Mallinckrodt was the third opioid maker to seek chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.