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Last week, Landry’s won the auction for Joe’s Crab Shack owner Ignite Restaurant Group, according to a commentary yesterday in Nation's Restaurant News. The company bid $57 million, edging out an offer from a shell company that, according to a source, was formed by Johnny Vassallo, founder of Mo’s Restaurants in Houston, and Houston businessman Corbin Robertson. Interestingly, the $57 million wasn’t even the most that Landry’s would have paid, according to the commentary. Recall that shortly after the bankruptcy was filed, the company bid $60 million and won a deal with Kelly Investment Group to act as a second stalking-horse bidder. The company ended up saving $3 million. Landry’s and its CEO, “Billion Dollar Buyer” Tilman Fertitta, are getting a debt-free, streamlined version of Ignite and its two chains. At its peak, in 2014, Joe’s operated 139 locations around the country. It slowly began closing units as sales problems increased, declining to 130 locations in 2015, and then 112 units at the end of 2016. That’s the number of units the chain had when it filed for bankruptcy. Of the 72 units currently remaining, 33 locations are in three states: Texas, California and Florida.

Hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. has purchased a slice of debt that would ensure the hedge fund's ability to block Warren Buffett's deal to buy power-transmission business Oncor, Dow Jones Newswires reported today. Elliott has been acquiring debt of Energy Future Holdings Corp., which owns Oncor, in recent months. The fund already owned a major position in the biggest block of debt and had argued it could block any deal, but the purchase of a different class from Fidelity Investments closes a potential loophole that Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. could have used to force the deal. Berkshire said yesterday that it was standing pat and wouldn't raise its more than $9 billion offer for Oncor. In a statement, the company emphasized support it has gotten from Texas stakeholders, saying it "sets our offer apart from any other bid." State regulators had squashed prior deals for Oncor.

U.S. Trustee Gail Geiger of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Alaska, outlined objections to the proposed $1 million deal in a trustee’s Aug. 16 response to Alaska Dispatch News owner Alice Rogoff’s debtor motion, the Alaska Journal of Commerce reported today. Most parties haven’t been given notice of the first motions filed this week, Geiger objected on behalf of those owed money by Rogoff and the Dispatch. Geiger told the court in her filing that she will advocate “that the Court grant interim relief only to the extent necessary to avoid irreparable harm between now and the time that a final hearing, on notice to all parties in interest, can be conducted.” In Rogoff’s motion to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court filed Aug. 15, she seeks approval for a debtor-in-possession, or DIP, loan of $1 million with the Binkley Company, made up of four Binkley siblings and Jason Evans, as well as to spend some of that money to pay her newspaper carriers and her past due employee health insurance premiums.

Automakers yesterday won a temporary reprieve from lawsuits filed by victims of defective air bags made by bankrupt Takata Corp that led to the largest-ever auto safety recall and at least 18 deaths, Reuters reported. The decision gives the Japanese auto supplier breathing room to work through its bankruptcy reorganization. Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon in Wilmington, Delaware, granted a 90-day halt on lawsuits brought by Hawaii, New Mexico, the U.S. Virgin Islands as well as individuals. He did not extend the shield to 48 federal cases that extend across several districts, saying that the lawsuits had already advanced. Takata argued for a six-month freeze on hundreds of lawsuits so management could complete a $1.6 billion sale of its viable operations, crucial to its reorganization, and replace air bag inflators that are subject to the biggest recall in automotive history. Judge Shannon said that he was "extremely sensitive" to the plaintiffs' cases but believed a "breathing spell" for Takata was appropriate. The stay expires on Nov. 15.

Pending final review, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Magdeline D. Coleman said yesterday that she would approve the sales of North Philadelphia Health System’s properties at Eighth Street and Girard Avenue for a combined $10.25 million, Philly.com reported. The bulk of the property, including Girard Medical Center and the associated Goldman Clinic, a methadone clinic, will go to Ironstone Real Estate Partners for $8.5 million. Ironstone intends to maintain the property as a behavioral-health and drug-treatment center as long as it has an agreement with a care provider to operate the facilities. Additional parcels are being sold to Project HOME, which will pay $1.75 million.

Los Angeles’s Shepherd University, which offers classes in theology, music and nursing, filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday with scant details about its financial challenges, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The nonprofit school’s 16-page bankruptcy petition provides few financial details and doesn’t explain what consequences the filing may have on its students. The school has about 280 students and 87 faculty members, according to a report that accrediting agency WASC Senior College and University Commission released after visiting Shepherd’s campus in March. Founded in 1999, the Christian school offers undergraduate and advanced degrees. Tuition cost between $1,800 and $19,968.75 a semester for the 2014-2015 academic year, depending on course load and degree type, according to Shepherd’s website. The school isn’t affiliated with the state-funded Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, W.Va. Shepherd’s operations lost money during the most recent three fiscal years as student payments and donation pledges were slow to trickle in, according to the commission’s report. Nearly 40 percent of the school’s revenue comes from donations, the report said.

Crossroads Systems, Inc., an intellectual property licensing company headquartered in Austin, Texas, yesterday  announced that it filed a pre-packaged chapter 11 that has been accepted by more than two-thirds of the shareholders of the company, according to a press release. In connection with the filing, the company entered into restructuring support agreements with 210/CRDS Investment LLC (210) and with certain holders of the company's Series F preferred stock. Subject to the terms and conditions of the Plan and the restructuring support agreement (RSA) with 210 ("210 RSA"), Dallas-based 210 will invest $4 million cash in Crossroads Systems in exchange for shares of the reorganized company's common stock representing approximately 49.49 percent of the common stock of the reorganized company.  In addition, 210 will provide up to $10 million of financing for the company to use (subject to the terms and conditions of the plan and the 210 RSA) to implement its strategy of monetizing its intellectual property assets and pursuing investments in companies that generate profit and positive cash flows, thus creating long-term shareholder value.

Goodwill Industries of Southern Nevada, which runs 50 donation centers and retail stores in Las Vegas, filed bankruptcy 20 months after issuing about $22 million of unrated municipal bonds to finance the acquisition of three retail facilities, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The nonprofit issued the debt through a Wisconsin agency, the Public Finance Authority, which specializes in acting as a conduit for risky debt. Borrowers for speculative projects sometimes forgo credit ratings rather than risk the taint of being labeled junk. Sales at Goodwill stores began declining in the fall of 2016, corresponding with a nationwide retail downturn. “The recent expansion, the retail downturn, and increased operating costs to run our retail stores have led us to make the difficult decision to filed for Chapter 11 reorganization," the charity said on its website.

A bankruptcy court judge yesterday in West Palm Beach approved the auction of hundreds of thousands of dollars in sample wedding dresses and other inventory being held in Alfred Angelo’s warehouse in Deerfield Beach, the Sun Sentinel reported. The auction was sought by court-appointed trustee Margaret Smith “to limit administrative expenses” in the company’s chapter 7 case, according to Patricia Redmond, lawyer for Alfred Angelo. The 84-year-old company closed its stores around the world and filed for bankruptcy in mid-July. Only sample dresses and wholesale inventory stored in the warehouse will be on the auction block — not those sold at retail stores in South Florida, said D. Brett Marks, lawyer for the trustee.