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The owner of the Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette-Mail, which won a Pulitzer Prize last year for its coverage of the state's opioid drug crisis, has warned its entire staff of pending layoffs and said it plans to file for chapter 11 protection and find a potential buyer, the Associated Press reported. The Gazette-Mail yesterday reported that its owner, Charleston Newspapers, issued the 60-day layoff notice to its 209 employees. The newspaper said that buyers are being sought and the highest current bidder was Wheeling, W.Va.-based Ogden Newspapers, which owns more than 40 daily newspapers nationwide, including several in West Virginia. The Charleston Gazette and Charleston Daily Mail combined newsrooms in 2015. Their business, circulation, advertising and production departments had been one unit since 1958. Last week a federal judge upheld an arbitrator's ruling that ordered Charleston Newspapers to pay nearly $3.8 million to MediaNews Group, the former owners of the Charleston Daily Mail. The figure represented the profit from the Charleston Newspapers' sale of the Daily Mail, including its internet address, and other fees and costs.

Two subsidiaries of Scottish Re Group Ltd. have filed for bankruptcy with a deal in hand to sell to an investment fund connected to a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Facing five years of deferred interest payments coming due, Scottish Annuity & Life Insurance Co. and Scottish Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy Sunday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. Their parent is reinsurance company Scottish Re Group Ltd., which is owned by Cerberus and MassMutual Capital Partners LLC. Reinsurance provides insurance for insurance companies. The parent company isn’t part of the bankruptcy and has commenced voluntary winding-up proceedings in the Cayman Islands, according to court filings.

Experts say that Philadelphia Energy Solutions faces a potential short squeeze in the niche renewable fuel credit market if a U.S. bankruptcy judge denies the refiner’s request to shed some $350 million in outstanding compliance obligations, Reuters reported. PES, which owns the largest and oldest refiner on the U.S. East Coast, filed for chapter 11 protection on Jan. 22, blaming the cost of complying with the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard for its financial woes. Under the RFS, refiners must either blend biofuels like ethanol into their fuel pool or, like PES, buy credits from those who do. Refiners have so far been unsuccessful in convincing the administration of President Donald Trump to reform the program. The PES bankruptcy is a pre-packaged deal with near-unanimous support from lenders that could be resolved as early as late February, but the preferred exit plan rests largely on a judge ruling the company does not need to purchase some $180 million worth of compliance credits.

Houston’s Cobalt International Energy Inc. has moved a step closer to extricating itself from an Angolan oil venture, winning bankruptcy court approval of a $500 million settlement with Angola’s state-controlled energy group Sonangol, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Cobalt’s history with Angola has been a troubled one, sparking lawsuits and investigations, and featuring a failed effort to sell the company’s Angolan assets to Sociedade Nacional de Combustíveis de Angola — Empresa Pública, or Sonangol, for $1.75 billion. The order signed by Judge Marvin Isgur ends the fighting and transfers the assets to Sonangol, as long as $500 million arrives in bank accounts in the U.S. The money needs to arrive in Cobalt’s U.S. bank accounts, or there is no settlement, according to the order signed by Judge Isgur at the hearing in a Houston bankruptcy court. While Cobalt’s creditors await the Sonangol cash, they are looking for buyers for assets in the Gulf of Mexico, and trying to hammer out agreements that will ease it to confirmation of a chapter 11 plan by the end of March. Judge Isgur also approved rules for bidding on Cobalt, setting a March 6 auction.

The attorneys representing the Montana victims of sex abuse by Catholic priests say more money exists for settlements after the Great Falls-Billings Diocese declared chapter 11 bankruptcy last March, the Billings Gazette reported. In December, the victims group alleged that $70 million in Catholic real estate assets and an additional $16 million in funds transferred out of the Great Falls-Billings Diocese should be considered fair game for victims' settlements. In a move to streamline the complaints, the judge overseeing the case ordered the victims group to separate out the two claims. The judge will now make one ruling on the whether the $70 million is available and a separate ruling on whether the $16 million is also fair game. In a recent supplemental filing, attorneys for the victims group made their argument for the $16 million. In their claim, the attorneys argue that the diocese transferred more than $16 million in assets from its deposit and loan fund to an entity known as the Capital Assets Support Corp. The attorneys alleged in their court filing that the funds transfer was an attempt by the diocese to "hinder, delay or defraud" its creditors.

A bankruptcy judge gave his formal approval to the sale of 28 Perkins restaurants, including two local locations, at a hearing in Erie, Pa., this week, the Star Beacon reported. Judge Thomas Agresti signed off on Tuesday on an order that accepts the $7.8 million deal that will see a Pennsylvania company acquire acquire the assets of Unique Ventures Group, the prior owner, according to M. Colette Gibbons, an attorney who is serving as chapter 11 trustee for UVG. UVG, based in Meadville, Pa., filed for chapter 11 protection almost a year ago, and the assets were put on the auction block earlier this month. Three bidders emerged, with 5171 Campbells Land Co., of Monroeville, Pa., submitting the highest quote.

The J.G. Wentworth Company announced that it has successfully completed its reorganization in coordination with its lenders, ABL Advisor reported. The restructuring was pursuant to the company’s pre-packaged chapter 11 that was confirmed by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware on January 17. Through its plan, the company fully extinguished $449.5 million in principal of outstanding debt, while securing a new revolving credit facility of approximately $70 million, supplied by HPS Investment Partners, LLC. The company estimates that its debt service will be reduced from $32 million to approximately $5 million annually.

After a quick trip through chapter 11, Expro International, an offshore-focused oil-and-gas services company, won final approval of a plan that hands control of the business to lenders owed more than $1 billion, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Following a hearing yesterday at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston, Judge David Jones readily signed off on the plan and praised the executives and other professional who worked out the details of the debt-cutting deal. Before filing for bankruptcy, Expro reached an agreement with about 65 percent of key lenders that wipes out some $1.4 billion in obligations through a debt-for-equity swap. The deal frees Expro from about $80 million in annual interest payments, court papers show. Under the plan, junior lenders and the company’s current owners will take home warrants to purchase small stakes in the reorganized business. The company’s general unsecured creditors will be paid in full.

A public trustee will be allowed to look at bank statements, cancelled checks and documents related to a $13 million loan taken out by former Alaska Dispatch News owner Alice Rogoff, the Alaska Journal of Commerce reported. At a Jan. 18 hearing, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Gary Spraker said that the permission comes with conditions to protect confidentiality, but he ordered that outright objections to looking at “certain” documents on the part of Rogoff’s Northrim Bank attorney are too vague and need to be spelled out more specifically. He said he’s “not going to rule on the question en masse.” The bankruptcy case, filed as a chapter 11 reorganization on Aug. 12, 2017, and converted to a chapter 7 liquidation after the sale of the company Sept. 11, is still in the discovery phase to find assets for repaying Rogoff’s $2.3 million in debts to dozens of local and national businesses and individuals.

A Suffield, Conn.-based marketing company that has received $3.5 million in state economic development loans since 2009 filed a Jan. 8 petition for chapter 11 protection from creditors, while it reorganizes in hopes of getting out of a cash bind it attributes to financial problems affecting retail stores nationwide that are its customers, the Hartford Courant reported. Windsor Marketing Group. Inc. and its president and owner, Kevin F. Armata, told the U.S. Bankruptcy Court that without chapter 11 relief the company “will suffer irreparable harm in that it will be forced to cease operations, thereby destroying its going concern value for creditors … and eliminating vital jobs for its employees.” However, the company gave a more optimistic assessment yesterday. “While we are re-organizing, we are proceeding with business as usual, and...[w]e fully expect to emerge from Chapter 11 as soon as practicable, stronger than ever,” Chief Marketing Officer Steve Thomas said. Windsor Marketing, which marked 40 years in business in 2016, says that it has more than 3,000 customers, including major retail chains — to which it sells “in-store marketing” materials such as high-definition “merchandising signage” to grab customers’ attention, steer them to product displays, and stimulate “impulse purchases.” he bankruptcy case, moving forward in its early stage, has caused concern at the state Department of Economic and Community Development — which loaned the company $2 million in 2009 and another $1.5 million in 2015 for expansion of the company's headquarters.