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Honeywell International has interjected itself into the bankruptcy proceeding of the successors to Chicago Fire Brick and Wellsville Fire Brick, companies that spent a decade creating a trust that would pay individuals with asbestos claims, Forbes reported yesterday. On May 3, Honeywell asked the federal bankruptcy court in Oakland, Calif., to make those ballots public. Those holding claims against companies are asked to vote on proposed bankruptcy plans. Objecting to Honeywell's request is the trustee of CFB’s trust and the Pittsburgh asbestos firm Goldberg, Persky & White. “This court’s local rules required the Plan Proponents to file ‘all ballots,’” Honeywell’s attorneys wrote. “Yet the Plan Proponents failed to do so and have refused to provide copies of the ballots to Honeywell.”

After a bankruptcy auction where four bidders vied for battery maker Aquion Energy Inc., an entity called Juline-Titans LLC had the winning $9.16 million bid, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported today. The firm, which registered in Delaware on May 30, is an affiliate of the China Titans Energy Technology Group. Titans is an investment holdings company that “engages in research, development, manufacture and sale of electric products and equipment” in China. Aquion, the Lawrenceville, Pa.-based saltwater battery manufacturer, filed for bankruptcy in March after a decade of raking in Silicon Valley bonafides and capital. It will go before a bankruptcy judge to certify the sale.

The dozen tenants left at Terrace Manor — a derelict 61-unit property in Southeast D.C. near the border with Maryland — are raising concerns about landlord Sanford Capital's plans to sell the affordable complex to a third-party buyer for $5.86 million as part of a chapter 11 case the Washington City Paper reported yesterday. Through its attorneys, the tenants association at the property has submitted a motion requesting an accelerated legal discovery process in the matter, with a judge expected to make a decision on a central aspect of the debtor's bankruptcy plan on July 5. The debtor, a Sanford Capital affiliate, seeks to sell Terrace Manor to an affiliate of a development firm called Equilibrium. Those two entities entered a purchase contract last June. Sanford's attorneys say a court-sanctioned deal would let the affiliate that controls the property pay off some $3 million in debt to its creditors, including its main lender, EagleBank. They also say a successful transfer would give the tenants what they want: new ownership of the property. But the tenants counter that they do not have sufficient information to believe that Terrace Manor is worth the proposed $5.86 million selling price or to know how Equilibrium plans to renovate the site to safe and habitable standards.

Payless ShoeSource Inc. settled a dispute with its creditors yesterday, after creditors alleged that the company's private equity owners inappropriately siphoned off $400 million before the U.S. retailer's bankruptcy, Reuters reported. The case has been monitored closely by other private equity-owned companies and their creditors, because it could spark more claims against bankrupt companies over dividend recapitalizations, which involve a company borrowing money so it can pay the buyout firms which own it a special dividend. Payless' creditors had said in court filings that private equity firms Golden Gate Capital and Blum Capital, which together hold 98.5 percent of the company and control its board, received more than $400 million in dividends in recent years. Under the settlement, the shoe chain's unsecured creditors, largely its landlords and vendors, will receive $25 million in cash in the bankruptcy reorganization.

Premiere Medical Management Group, a Burbank, Calif.-based multispecialty medical group, filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy on Thursday, Becker’s Hospital Review reported on Friday. Documents filed in the case, which is pending in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California, provide an overview of the financial challenges Premiere is facing. In its bankruptcy petition, the medical group listed its assets as less than $10,000 and its liabilities as more than $1.6 million. The group said it has more than 50 creditors. Among the creditors are medical supplies companies, physical therapy service providers and IT service and software training companies. 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. 

Teen apparel seller Papaya Clothing filed for bankruptcy protection Thursday, the latest mall-based chain to fall victim to changing consumer shopping habits roiling the retail industry, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. Papaya, a privately held California-based chain with 80 stores and some 1,300 employees, said its financial woes are the result of an industry-wide shift in consumer preferences to online shopping coupled with an ill-timed expansion in recent years. Papaya, whose corporate name is Cornerstone Apparel, Inc., brought in revenue of $134 million last year. And unlike many of its competitors that have filed for bankruptcy protection — among them Rue21, Wet Seal and American Apparel — Papaya has no secured debt. The company said in papers filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Los Angeles that it will keep its doors open during its chapter 11 case. It intends to use the bankruptcy to identify the core retail stores it can reorganize around and to wring “meaningful rent concessions” from its landlords.

Soupman Inc., the company that licensed the name and recipes of the chef who inspired the tyrannical "Soup Nazi" character on the television comedy "Seinfeld," filed for chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, Reuters reported. The company said it has secured $2 million in new debtor-in-possession financing from an independent third-party investment firm, which will be used to meet its working capital needs during the chapter 11 process. Wyse Advisors LLC's Michael Wyse has been hired as Soupman's chief restructuring officer and interim chief financial officer, the company said. In May, Soupman's former chief financial officer, Robert Bertrand, was indicted for tax evasion after being charged with 20 counts of failing to pay Medicare, Social Security and federal income taxes. Based in Staten Island, N.Y., Soupman sells products under the Original SoupMan brand. Soupman traces its roots to 1984, when Al Yeganeh opened his soup shop on West 55th Street in Midtown Manhattan and soon began drawing long lines of customers. Yeganeh was the inspiration for Yev Kassem, a character first portrayed by Larry Thomas in a 1995 "Seinfeld" episode who was known for making customers follow strict rules to order or risk being turned away with his forceful cry: "No soup for you!"

A Lancaster, Pa.-based, family-owned holding company that owns three food-related companies has filed for chapter 11 protection, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported. Earth Pride Organics was founded five years ago, and it has since grown to include four subsidiaries: American Specialty Foods, C.O. Nolt Bakery Supply, EPX Trucking and Lancaster Fine Foods. Two separate chapter 11 petitions were filed on May 31 for Earth Pride Organics and Lancaster Fine Foods.Earth Pride Organics and Lancaster Fine Foods are both "unable to pay its debts as they mature, and it is necessary for the company to reorganize," managing member Michael S. Thompson wrote in two separate court filings for each company.

Kansas City-based CST Industries Inc. filed for chapter 11 protection to rightsize its balance sheet and potentially identify a new partner, the Kansas City Business Journal reported yesterday. Founded in 1893, CST Industries (originally known as Columbian Steel Tank) is the largest manufacturer of steel tanks and covers in the world, with clients in agriculture, industrial liquids, oil and gas, water and wastewater, bioenergy and other markets. More than 350,000 of its tanks and 18,000 covers have been installed in 125 countries around the globe. Beset with overwhelming debt, the company decided to file for bankruptcy to give it an opportunity to once again thrive. The company listed between $100 million and $500 million in assets and liabilities. Overall, the company listed 4,783 creditors around the globe.