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Both the 371-acre Southern Vermont College campus and the Gate House building at the entrance drive appear on course to be sold following judicial orders filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Vermont, the Bennington (Vt.) Banner reported. Judge Colleen Brown has approved orders allowing the sale of the campus and buildings to Southwestern Vermont Health Care before January and for the separate sale of the Gate House building on 2.28-acres on Monument Drive to Kenneth Milman of Bennington. Raymond Obuchowski, the court-appointed trustee representing the estate of the former college, which closed in May 2019, said earlier this week that no appeals or objections had yet surfaced that might slow or halt the sales. SVHC, the corporate parent of Southwestern Vermont Medical Center, offered $4.65 million for the campus during a bidding process held before the bankruptcy court on Dec. 11. At that time, the health care organization outbid Moshe Perlstein, of New Jersey, a youth camp operator who held two camps for teens on the campus over the summer, and businessman and investor Paul Belogour and his Vermont RE Development, LCC. Perlstein dropped out of the bidding at $4.6 million, while Belogour stopped bidding at $3.95 million.

K&W Cafeteria Inc. has received federal Bankruptcy Court permission to delay filing its next proposed reorganization plan by three months to March 31, the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal reported. Judge Benjamin Kahn also approved giving the Winston-Salem restaurant chain three additional months, or until May 30, to gain confirmation of the plan. Approval of the delays come as K&W's owners and management say they want to change course on its future after saying it did not attract an adequate bid for its assets. K&W, a staple of Southern comfort foods for 83 years, filed for bankruptcy protection Sept. 2 as the latest step in a corporate downsizing that began before the COVID-19 pandemic. Judge Kahn separately approved the sale of two company-owned properties in Cornelius for a combined $1.47 million.

Bankruptcy Judge David Jones yesterday approved McKinsey & Co.’s settlement with Justice Department watchdogs over how the firm discloses potential conflicts of interest, effectively ending a legal battle on transparency in the U.S. bankruptcy system, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Under the settlement, announced earlier this month, McKinsey agreed to walk away from about $8 million in fees for work it did helping navigate Westmoreland Coal Co. through a 2018 chapter 11 filing. McKinsey didn’t admit to any wrongdoing but agreed to broaden the scope of disclosures made in future cases, including the names of confidential clients and potential conflicts involving its many affiliates. In return, the Justice Department agreed to drop an objection it filed in the Westmoreland case alleging McKinsey’s disclosures were legally insufficient. The settlement is the latest in several multimillion-dollar deals in recent years tied to questions about McKinsey’s disclosure practices. Bankruptcy advisers legally are required to be disinterested and to disclose connections that could give rise to a conflict of interest.

Mallinckrodt PLC shareholders lost their bid for an official committee to represent them in the drugmaker’s bankruptcy as it vies to dig out from an avalanche of litigation over opioid sales, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey rejected the request yesterday, handing a win to Mallinckrodt, which is struggling to build support for a turnaround strategy that would resolve the company’s legal troubles. Like Purdue Pharma LP and Insys Therapeutics Inc., Mallinckrodt resorted to bankruptcy to try to get an agreement with states, municipalities, tribes and people seeking damages for the company’s alleged role in fueling the national epidemic of opioid addiction. In addition to opioid litigation, Mallinckrodt faces potential damages in an argument with the government over rebates to Medicaid for the company’s Acthar Gel product.

Renovate America Inc., which lends homeowners money to make “green” improvements such as adding solar panels or energy-efficient windows, filed for bankruptcy as litigation and the COVID-19 pandemic eroded revenue, Bloomberg News reported. Renovate’s lending was part of a government-backed program that lets people finance their loans by adding the payments to their property taxes. But consumer advocates and federal regulators have criticized them as expensive and susceptible to abuse. At least 56 legal cases are pending against San Diego-based Renovate, according to a chapter 11 filing on Monday. More than 115,000 loans were handed out by Renovate, according to its website. But revenue plummeted 81 percent between 2016 and last year after new legislation in California established tougher “ability-to-pay” standards for lending, according to a declaration filed by Chief Executive Officer Shawn Stone. Lawsuits have cost about $15 million since the beginning of 2018, Stone wrote. The COVID-19 pandemic provided the final push into bankruptcy, with financing volume dropping 47 percent in the first 10 months of 2020 compared with the previous year.

Ebony Media Operations LLC plans to sell its business to an investment group led by former NBA player Ulysses “Junior” Bridgeman for about $14 million, the only serious offer received by the bankrupt publisher of Black magazines, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Last July the owner of its namesake magazine was forced into bankruptcy by Parkview Capital Credit and other creditors that said they wanted to take over the publication, which has chronicled Black culture for 75 years but has fallen on hard times. The involuntary bankruptcy came weeks after Ebony’s main shareholder was fired as chief executive and removed from the board. The company said it would investigate financial transactions he had made, allegedly without board or lender approval. Ebony stopped publishing in print in 2019. The company’s assets consist mostly of intellectual property, including Ebony and Jet trademarks, the related domain names and websites, and certain legacy published materials. In October, Bridgeman Sports & Media LLC was named the lead bidder subject to better and higher offers in a process supervised by U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston. On Friday, said in a court filing that no other qualified bids had been submitted as of a bid deadline the previous day and that Bridgeman Sports had been declared the successful bidder. A bankruptcy judge is scheduled today to consider whether to approve the proposed sale.

Vitality Health Plan of California, which offers Medicare Advantage plans, filed for chapter 11 protection on Dec. 18, Becker's Hospital Review reported. The company entered bankruptcy after California hospitals canceled their contracts with the insurer earlier this year over its deteriorating financial situation. Vitality is required to maintain a few million dollars in financial reserves, but it had negative working capital as of this summer, according to the San Jose Mercury News, which cited documents from the California Department of Managed Health Care. The company entered bankruptcy with more than $1 million in estimated assets and more than $10 million in estimated liabilities, according to the bankruptcy petition. The creditor with the largest unsecured claim against the health plan is Regional Medical Center in San Jose, Calif., according to bankruptcy documents.

A bankrupt coal operator's request to liquidate its assets has been denied by a federal judge in West Virginia, the Associated Press reported. Blackjewel filed for chapter 11 protection in July 2019 and mostly halted operations. The company had sought to convert to chapter 7, which would allow it to liquidate its assets. The company said in court filings it didn't have the assets to continue reorganizing in a chapter 11 proceeding. Bankruptcy Judge Benjamin A. Kahn denied the request yesterday. Blackjewel's mine shutdowns put about 600 employees in Wyoming and 1,100 in Appalachia out of work last year, and left hundreds of Kentucky and Virginia miners without pay. Some of them held a months-long protest on a set of railroad tracks in Harlan County, Ky.

Rubio’s Restaurants, a presence in San Diego for nearly four decades, cleared a major hurdle yesterday in its quest to emerge from bankruptcy by the end of this month, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. A pre-negotiated plan for restructuring the company’s substantial debt of more than $72 million was approved by Bankruptcy Judge Mary F. Walrath, who commended the company, its lender and the committee representing unsecured creditors for working out their differences ahead of the hearing. Rubio’s had filed for chapter 11 protection only two months ago. As part of the plan, Golub Capital, Rubio’s long-time lender, has agreed to provide $52 million in so-called “exit” financing, of which $8 million was new funding to keep the company afloat during bankruptcy period and $7 million is new financing once the company emerges from bankruptcy. Owner Mill Road Capital has agreed to invest $6 million back into the company and in so doing will write off $2 million in liabilities. Golub, which is converting $18 million of its debt into equity and waiving remaining claims, will now hold an equity stake in Rubio’s. Company executives were unwilling to state who will have majority ownership in the chain. The $72 million in outstanding debt does not include a $10 million loan from the Paycheck Protection Program that, presumably, will be forgiven.