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Answers Corp., which owns the Answers.com and Multiply websites, filed for chapter 11 protection on Friday with a plan to swap ownership of the company to creditors who are owed about $540 million, according to court documents, Reuters reported. Answers was acquired by Apax Partners, a European private equity firm, for about $900 million in 2014. The company rebranded itself last year as Multiply, a "fan engagement platform" that connects celebrities and their followers. St Louis-based Answers also owns ForeSee, which provides customer surveys, and Webcollage, a platform for website publishing. Under the company's plan, Answers will lower its debt by $471 million, according to documents filed in Manhattan's U.S. Bankruptcy Court. The plan has already been approved by 98 percent of Answers creditors.

A Catholic diocese in Minnesota filed for bankruptcy on Friday, joining more than a dozen other U.S. Catholic districts and religious orders driven to seek protection from creditors by the church's clergy sex abuse scandal, Reuters reported on Friday. The Roman Catholic Diocese of New Ulm, which is southwest of Minneapolis, said that it will use chapter 11 bankruptcy to reorganize its finances and produce a plan to pay creditors. The rural diocese is defending 101 lawsuits involving alleged sex abuse by clergy mostly from the 1950s through the 1970s. Minnesota had lifted the civil statute of limitations for a period of three years ending May 25, 2016, allowing claims from prior decades to be brought. The diocese is the third in Minnesota to file for bankruptcy in recent years over claims of clergy sex abuse.

BCBG Max Azria Group Inc., the glitzy fashion house founded by designer Max Azria, filed for bankruptcy in a third attempt in two years to rescue a business beset by changing consumer habits, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The latest turnaround effort began in January when the chain started closing 120 of its stores, Chief Restructuring Officer Holly Felder Etlin said in court papers filed yesterday in Manhattan federal court. “Like many other apparel and retail companies, BCBG has fallen victim in recent years to adverse macro trends, including a general shift away from brick-and-mortar to online retail channels, a shift in consumer demographics away from branded apparel,” Etlin said. The company either will sell itself at a court-supervised auction proposed for May. If no acceptable bids come in, management will try to negotiate a debt-for-equity swap with junior lenders owed $289.4 million.

Toronto-based retail operator YM Inc. is preparing to submit an offer for the intellectual property of The Wet Seal LLC, as the 55-year-old U.S. teen retailer grapples with its second bankruptcy in the past two years, Reuters reported yesterday. YM, which owns Canadian chains Stitches, Sirens and Suzy Shier, plans to submit a stalking-horse bid for Wet Seal's intellectual property. Bids for Wet Seal were yesterday, according to the website for Hilco Streambank, which was hired to sell Wet Seal's intellectual property. Wet Seal filed for bankruptcy in February with liabilities between $50 million and $100 million after it failed to find financing to continue as a going concern. It sought court protection without a buyer in hand, and said it planned to sell all of its assets.

A Doral, Fla.-based company that owes more than $70 million to creditors has filed for Chapter 7, the South Florida Business Journal reported today. Billed as an engineering and infrastructure firm specializing in telecommunications and energy, Bras Trading Inc. filed for bankruptcy on Feb. 14. Of the approximately $73.3 million Bras Trading owes, a sizable chunk is owed to just one company, according to the bankruptcy filing. Eutelsat do Brazil, a Miami-based holding company for Brazilian telecommunications firm Eutelsat do Brasil, is owed $64 million by Bras trading.

Two former executives at SunEdison Inc., the solar-power company that filed for bankruptcy protection last year, filed whistleblower lawsuits claiming they were fired after sounding the alarm about the company’s precarious finances, the Wall Street Journal reported. Carlos Domenech and Pancho Perez, who held senior positions at two SunEdison subsidiaries, last week sued their former employers and top officials including former SunEdison Chief Executive Ahmad Chatila. They are seeking back pay and damages for what they say were retaliatory firings after they voiced concerns to senior management and the board.

A U.S. judge on Friday rejected Cumulus Media Inc.’s bid to proceed with a refinancing plan that the second-largest U.S. radio network hoped would help reduce its $2.4 billion debt load, but was opposed by some lenders, Reuters reported. The decision by U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla in Manhattan came in a lawsuit the Atlanta-based company filed in December, accusing JPMorgan Chase & Co. of withholding consent to parts of its refinancing plan. In its lawsuit, Cumulus said that JPMorgan's actions in its role as administrative agent under a 2013 credit agreement had threatened a deal it reached with bondholders that would deleverage the company by up to $305 million. But JPMorgan and a group creditors who objected to the deal million of the company's loans disagreed and argued the transaction was not permitted under the credit agreement, a position Judge Failla adopted.

Rig firm Seadrill, battling with $14 billion in debt and liabilities, said today that it may have to file for chapter 11 protection if it fails to reach a restructuring agreement with its lenders, Reuters reported. Once the crown jewel in the empire of shipping tycoon John Fredriksen, Oslo-listed Seadrill's shares have fallen 92 percent in the past three years as plunging crude prices and drastic spending cuts by oil companies hammered rig rates. Seadrill's problems mirror those of another Fredriksen business, tanker firm Frontline, which had to be rescued in 2012 after a prolonged slump in rates by Hemen Holding, which manages his holdings in the listed companies he controls. The Norwegian-born billionaire announced plans on Tuesday to beef up the tanker business and update its fleet while prices for vessels are low to position it for an expected recovery in rates from 2018. But the scale of Seadrill's liabilities dwarf those of Frontline, and the rig company said it would be challenging to find a "fully consensual agreement" before an April 30 deadline. More than 40 banks are involved, in addition to bondholders. Read more. 

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Humble Surgical Hospital filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Friday morning, three weeks after U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes entered a multi-million judgment against the specialty, five-bed hospital, the Houston Chronicle reported on Saturday. Earlier this month, Aetna Life Insurance Co. was awarded $51.4 million, including nearly $10 million in interest, to recover excessive health care fees the insurer said it paid to the hospital during the past seven years. Humble Surgical estimated its assets between $10 million and $50 million and liabilities between $50 million and $100 million. Read more.

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