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The judge overseeing Imerys Talc America’s bankruptcy says she needs more information about a bid to disregard 18,000 votes on the talc miner’s proposed restructuring plan that were changed after they were initially submitted, which could interfere with the company's ability to push the deal forward, Reuters reported. At a virtual hearing on Tuesday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein in Wilmington, Delaware signed off on requests from insurers and a group of personal injury claimants to probe what they say are problems ranging from late-filed votes to potentially invalid votes. If votes in favor of the plan are tossed, as one group of claimants represented by Arnold & Itkin have sought, the current 80% approval of the plan among personal injury claimants could be at risk. Imerys Talc filed for bankruptcy in February 2019 in the face of around 15,000 lawsuits alleging its products caused ovarian cancer and asbestos-related mesothelioma. It is the U.S.-based unit of French group Imerys SA. In 2020, it was sold to Magris Resources Canada for $223 million. Those proceeds will go to a trust that, under the company’s proposed chapter 11 plan, will pay personal injury claims.

Debt tied to Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc.’s sports unit sold off after the company disclosed a failed attempt to raise new capital and rework its balance sheet with existing creditors, Bloomberg News reported. Bonds of its Diamond Sports Group unit due 2027 fell to less than half their face value on Tuesday as holders were released from restrictions limiting their ability to trade. The senior unsecured notes were among the worst performers in the U.S. high-yield market, according to Trace bond trading data. Sinclair proposed issuing $500 million of new Diamond Sports Group notes to existing bondholders, according to documents filed Monday. The plan, dated April 29, called for a roll-up of unsecured notes into first-lien bonds at prices between par and a 35% discount. 

A holding company behind an assisted living provider with about 50 small communities in Texas and Alabama has filed for chapter 11 protection, Senior Housing News reported. The company, CP Holdings LLC, owns or partially owns 50 subsidiaries operating 24-suite assisted living communities in rural markets, 10 of which operate facilities under the Country Place Senior Living brand, according to the June 20 filing. Also included in the bankruptcy filing is Pacrim, a six-employee CP Holdings subsidiary that aids with strategy, operations and finances as well as accounting and development. CP Holdings’ current liabilities total just over $83 million, with the majority owed to Hong Kong-based lender Tor Asia Credit Master Fund LP. CP Holdings has proposed selling its assets to Tor under a stalking-horse sale.

A group of insurers have convinced the judge overseeing Purdue Pharma LP’s bankruptcy to halt litigation over the scope of the OxyContin maker’s insurance policies so the matter can go to arbitration instead, Reuters reported. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain in White Plains, New York said he would stay the case during a virtual hearing on Monday. He determined that the company’s insurance coverage is not critical to its proposed reorganization that includes a settlement that resolves extensive litigation accusing it of fueling the national opioid crisis through deceptive marketing. “The insurance dispute here, while clearly important, in the context of these chapter 11 cases, is not so fundamentally important as to warrant its centralization in the court presiding over the bankruptcy cases,” Judge Drain said. The insurers include AIG Specialty Insurance Co, represented by Willkie Farr & Gallagher, and Liberty Mutual Insurance Europe SE, represented by Abrams Gorelick Friedman & Jacobson. The arbitration, which can start now, likely will not conclude until well after Purdue's bankruptcy wraps up.

The latest bankruptcy plan filed by the Boy Scouts of America increases the contributions from the BSA and its local councils to a proposed trust fund for child sex abuse victims while appearing to back away from a controversial settlement with one of the BSA’s insurers, the Associated Press reported. Under a revised plan submitted late last week, the Boy Scouts are offering to issue an $80 million unsecured promissory note to a trust fund for abuse victims. The BSA also is proposing to use restricted assets to help cover post-bankruptcy operational expenses, which would make up to $50 million in unrestricted cash available for abuse survivors. With the changes, the BSA’s proposed contribution to the trust fund would increase from about $120 million under a previous plan to as much as roughly $250 million. The BSA also said that its local councils would contribute $500 million into the fund for abuse victims, up from $425 million offered in the previous plan. The new proposal calls for the councils to contribute $300 million in cash and the remainder in property with a combined appraised value of $200 million.

Hertz Corp. is tapping the asset-backed securities market this week with its first full-term rental-car securitization since November 2019, part of its emergence from chapter 11 protection, Bloomberg News reported. Proceeds from its inaugural post-bankruptcy ABS will be used to finance the purchase of new vehicles to be leased to Hertz under a so-called master lease agreement. It will also be used to refinance both its original pre-bankruptcy legacy fleet-financing facility, as well as a $4 billion interim facility established last November with Athene USA Corp., an affiliate of Apollo Capital Management Inc., as a stepping stone toward an ABS transaction. The total $2.2 billion offering, composed of two bond series, is expected to meet strong demand from investors who have a renewed confidence in the rental-car sector as travel picks up post-pandemic. The deal will likely satisfy yield-hungry investors, market observers say, as risk premiums at price talk are relatively wide compared to other recent rental-car ABS from issuers such as Avis Budget Group Inc.

Texas Student Housing Authority filed for chapter 9 bankruptcy protection, listing between $10 million and $50 million of liabilities, Bloomberg News reported. The non-profit, state chartered corporation had assets of $1 million to $10 million, and as many as 199 creditors, according to a June 18 filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas. The Southlake, Texas-based organization was established in 1995 to purchase and manage student housing facilities located near the campuses of major colleges and universities, according to its website. It owns housing properties near the University of North Texas in Denton and Texas A&M University in College Station. Both projects offer premium facilities, equipped with resort-style swimming pools and fitness centers. “Both schools have had troubled muni-financed private student housing projects for years,” said Matt Fabian, a partner at Municipal Market Analytics. “So while the pandemic has made student housing financial conditions more challenging generally, that’s not the whole story when it comes to these schools.” In April, the board of the Texas Student Housing Authority met to consider chapter 9 bankruptcy proceedings for “The Cambridge,” its property in College Station.

After sex-abuse litigation pushed the Boy Scouts of America into bankruptcy last year, Michigan’s attorney general watched as the number of victims stepping forward climbed to 84,000, dwarfing similar allegations against the Catholic Church, the Wall Street Journal reported. In January, the Michigan State Police notified Dana Nessel’s office that 1,700 of those sex-abuse claims were in the state. Her office said it now thinks that up to 3,000 victims were abused in the state. “I certainly didn’t understand the scale of it as it pertained to Michigan,” said Ms. Nessel. “I think it’s a moral imperative that when we have this kind of information that we not sweep it under the rug.” Earlier this month, Ms. Nessel announced the first statewide criminal investigation into the Boy Scouts. It comes as the Boy Scouts near a civil settlement with lawyers representing the bulk of abuse victims as the youth group aims to end the largest bankruptcy case ever filed over childhood abuse. Ms. Nessel’s investigation is potentially damaging for the future of the Boy Scouts, which had hoped that filing for bankruptcy would ease a civil settlement with survivors and move the organization past its prior failures to protect children from predators. Instead, the chapter 11 case brought into the open roughly 84,000 claims, supplying a wealth of documentation that law enforcement never had before.

Pacific Theatres Exhibition Corp., the California theater chain that shut down because of the pandemic, said it filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy and plans to liquidate, a big loss for film fans on the movie industry’s home turf, Bloomberg News reported. The action Friday by the company, which also operates the ArcLight chain, follows an announcement in April that the company wouldn’t reopen after a yearlong closing caused by coronavirus restrictions. “Having taken steps to wind down the business, the company today is seeking protection under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code in order to liquidate its remaining assets for the benefit of its creditors,” a spokesman said in an emailed statement. There is still a chance some of the locations could reopen. AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., the largest global movie chain, has held acquisition talks with Pacific, according to AMC Chief Executive Officer Adam Aron. Earlier this week, two of Pacific’s venues in Los Angeles appeared on AMC’s mobile app but then vanished. Neither company commented on whether they were merging.

The Boy Scouts of America are nearing a settlement with lawyers for sex-abuse victims that marks a major step for the youth group’s efforts to end the largest bankruptcy case ever filed over childhood abuse, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The Boy Scouts are close to agreeing on a victim-compensation framework with a coalition of victims’ law firms that represent the bulk of the 84,000 men who stepped forward to file claims over sexual abuse in scouting programs. Details are still being hammered out, and there is no guarantee a final settlement will materialize. A deal with the law-firm coalition would mark a breakthrough for the Boy Scouts after 16 costly months under court protection. Any settlement proposal will still be subject to a vote by survivors and requires bankruptcy-court approval to take effect. The Boy Scouts filed for chapter 11 in February 2020, hoping to resolve a wave of civil litigation by victims after several states suspended statutes of limitation on sexual abuse, allowing survivors to sue regardless of how long ago the misconduct took place. The organization has said that the vast majority of abuse claims predate its modern youth protection program instituted in 1990, and that scouting is safer than ever before. It said that at least 85% of claims allege a first instance of abuse prior to that year.