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Sears Canada Inc. yesterday was granted court approval to proceed with a sale process that would allow the retailer to consider a range of potential deals, Reuters reported. A report by the court-appointed monitor FTI Consulting posted on its website on Wednesday said that more than 20 parties have signed non-disclosure agreements with Sears Canada as part of the planned sale process. Earlier this week, Edward Lampert's ESL Partners LP and Fairholme, which own about two-thirds of Sears Canada, said that they were considering a potential deal with the retailer and had engaged a legal adviser. The sale process, which will be conducted by BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc, would consider bids and proposals for deals involving its business, assets and leases, either in whole or in part. Sears Canada, which in 2012 was spun off from U.S. retailer Sears Holdings Corp, filed for creditor protection in June and laid out a restructuring plan that included cutting 2,900 jobs and closing roughly a quarter of its stores.

Guitar Center Inc., the largest U.S. retailer of music instruments and equipment, is looking for ways to restructure its $1.3 billion debt burden as music lovers move their shopping online, Reuters reported. Guitar Center, majority-owned by private equity firm Ares Management LP, has been having conversations with investment banks and law firms about hiring advisers to help address its capital structure, with $615 million in secured debt coming due in 2019. The musical instrument industry grew 9 percent to $7.1 billion in retail sales over the past five years, but remains well below its 2005 peak of $7.7 billion, according to data from The Music Trades magazine.

An attorney for Elliott Management yesterday complained to a bankruptcy court judge that the owner of Texas's largest power distribution business did not provide the investment fund with information needed to line up financing for its offer of more than $18 billion to buy the company, Reuters reported. Instead, Energy Future Holdings Corp., the bankrupt majority owner of Oncor Electric Delivery Co., struck a deal this month to sell its ownership of the business to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. for $9 billion in cash, valuing the company at $18.1 billion. A lawyer for Elliott Management, which spent years battling Argentina over its defaulted debt, told the court that the fund has enough debt in Oncor's parent, Energy Future, to block the Berkshire deal. The fund has argued that its own $18.5 billion Oncor deal would be better for creditors. Read more. 

Get additional insights and analysis on valuation topics by picking up a copy of ABI’s updated A Practical Guide to Bankruptcy Valuation. 

Morehead Memorial Hospital, a 108-bed nonprofit hospital in Eden, N.C., filed for chapter 11 protection on Monday, Becker's Hospital Review reported yesterday. Documents filed in the case, which is pending in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, said that the hospital listed its assets as between $10 million and $50 million and its liabilities as in the same range. Morehead Memorial said that it has more than 5,000 creditors. The hospital's largest unsecured creditor is San Diego-based medical device company Nuvasive, which has a $641,629 claim. The hospital said it will continue to operate as normal during the bankruptcy process. Read more.

For more on hospital and health care insolvencies, be sure to pick up a copy of the ABI Health Care Insolvency Manual, Third Edition from the ABI Bookstore. 

Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s bid for Oncor Electric Delivery Co. is about $300 million less than what Elliott Management Corp. wants, as the two investors fight over the value of the Texas-based power company, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Berkshire’s agreement to buy the utility values it at $18.2 billion to $18.25 billion, Oncor Chief Executive Officer Robert Shapard said yesterday. Activist investor Elliott Management Corp. is unhappy with the terms of the deal and is proposing a restructuring that values the Texas utility at $18.5 billion, according to a letter it released yesterday. Suitors have been lining up for a chance to buy Oncor since 2014, when its parent Energy Future Holdings Corp. filed for chapter 11 protection. Berkshire must still gain the approval of Texas regulators who’ve already rebuffed two prior attempts to buy the utility by NextEra Energy Inc. and Hunt Consolidated Inc. Read more. 

Get additional insights and analysis on valuation topics by picking up a copy of ABI’s updated A Practical Guide to Bankruptcy Valuation. 

Children's clothing seller Gymboree Corp. is closing 350 stores as it works to restructure in bankruptcy, the Associated Press reported. The San Francisco-based company said yesterday that it's mostly closing Gymboree and Crazy 8 stores. It also operates Janie and Jack stores. The company will have more than 900 locations after the stores are shut down. Gymboree filed for bankruptcy protection in June. The closing sales at affected stores are scheduled to begin next Tuesday.

Joe's Crab Shack owner Ignite Restaurant Group has officially filed a chapter 11 reorganization plan that confirms a California private equity group as its preferred bidder, intensifying a derisive court battle with Tilman Fertitta's restaurant empire, the Houston Chronicle reported on Friday. In the plan, Houston-based Ignite reaffirmed its intent to sell its restaurant chains, which also includes Brick House Tavern + Tap, to KRG Acquisitions Co. The company, an affiliate of a San Diego-based firm called Kelly Cos, agreed last month to pay $50 million for both brands. The bid sparked a controversy with Landry's, Tilman Fertitta's privately held restaurant and entertainment operation. The company in court filings offered $55 million for both restaurant chains and argued it should unseat KRG as the preferred bidder because its higher bid aligns with Ignite's obligation to secure the best sale price for its creditors.

A U.S. judge has appointed a new receiver to oversee the unwinding of assets held by hedge fund firm Platinum Partners, after the first receiver resigned over disagreements with federal securities regulators, Reuters reported on Friday. In a written order on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Dora Irizarry in Brooklyn accepted the resignation of Bart Schwartz, chairman of professional monitoring firm Guidepost Solutions LLC. Schwartz had been appointed receiver after prosecutors in December accused Platinum leaders of running a more than $1 billion fraud. The six men have pleaded not guilty. At the suggestion of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Irizarry appointed former bankruptcy judge Melanie Cyganowski, now head of law firm Otterbourg's bankruptcy group, as Schwartz's replacement. The agency is pursuing civil claims against the Platinum leaders.

People who lent money to Fyre Festival before it collapsed are now trying to force the company that ran the event into bankruptcy following the arrest of William “Billy” McFarland, the man behind the ill-fated music festival, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Hyped as “the cultural experience of the decade,” Fyre Festival was to be held in the Bahamas over two weekends in April and May featuring artists like Migos and Lil Yachty. But the festival proved to be a flop when attendees, some of whom paid thousands of dollars, arrived at the private party venue only to find a half-built festival ground, bad food and canceled musical acts. “We look forward to finding out where the money went,” said Robert Knuts, a lawyer at Sher Tremonte LLP, who filed a petition Friday in New York against Fyre Festival LLC on behalf of three lenders who sunk $530,000 into the event. Knuts said that they are part of a larger group of more than 20 individuals who together lent more than $4 million to Fyre Festival.