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Peabody Energy Corp. said yesterday that a group of banks, including affiliates of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase Bank, has pledged a combined $1.5 billion in loans to help the coal producer exit bankruptcy in the coming months. The cash will be used to cover claims by Peabody's secured lenders and provide "a strong foundation" for its capital structure when it emerges from the roughly $8 billion Chapter 11 bankruptcy it filed last April, according to court documents. Affiliates of Credit Suisse AG and Macquarie Group Ltd. are also part of the group that has signed on to the new financing. Peabody, with 6.3 billion tons of proven and probable coal reserves, joined other U.S. coal producers in bankruptcy last year when falling prices left it unable to service billions of dollars in debt taken on to finance expansion in Australia. The company expects to exit chapter 11 in the second quarter of this year with a plan, supported by most of its creditors, to cut more than $5 billion of debt and raise new capital through a $750 million private placement and a $750 million rights offering. Read more. 

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About 450 clergy abuse victims, plus several hundred other creditors of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minn., soon will be able to vote on competing compensation plans presented in bankruptcy court, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Kressel yesterday approved a timeline for sending out the ballots — within about 30 days — and a 40-day response time. Creditors can vote for one of two competing plans or none at all. Judge Kressel also denied a motion that would have allowed the survivors’ committee to sue more than 100 parishes, schools and other Catholic institutions that received several million dollars in transfer payments from the archdiocese in the 90 days before it filed for bankruptcy.

Bibhu Mohapatra, a New York fashion designer whose clothing has been worn by first lady Michelle Obama, has put his fashion house into bankruptcy, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bibhu LLC sought protection from creditors under chapter 11 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. Mohapatra’s company listed $81,000 in assets and more than $1.1 million in debt. Mohapatra said that the fashion house plans to continue doing business as usual and its planned debt restructuring would make the business more attractive for investors. He said that a restructuring of the company’s debts would allow Bibhu to add a second collection at a lower price point.

Leaders of a Marshalltown hospital are moving ahead with selling the facility as part of bankruptcy proceedings, the Associated Press reported yesterday. The sale of Central Iowa Healthcare’s (CIH) assets to Unity Point Health-Waterloo was unanimously approved by corporate members at a Tuesday meeting. Unity Point Health-Waterloo offered $12.5 million for the assets. CIH members also outlined the loss of more than $18 million as of Nov. 30, 2016. If the sale is approved by bankruptcy court, the downtown Marshalltown hospital will no longer be an independent hospital. The hospital is the only full-service medical center in its area and has more than 60,000 residents depending on it for health care services. A second measure approved at the Tuesday meeting retains 13 trustees until the end of the bankruptcy proceeding.

Nearly three years since filing for bankruptcy in response to a flood of sexual-abuse claims, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Stockton, Calif., is hoping to close the book on what Bishop Stephen Blaire has described as a “very difficult chapter,” the Union Democrat reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher M. Klein approved Blaire’s reorganization plan for the diocese on Tuesday, according to a written statement. The diocese filed for bankruptcy on Jan. 15, 2014, after paying out more than $15 million to settle nearly two dozen sex-abuse claims over a 20-year period. Under the plan, the diocese has agreed to pay $15 million to survivors of sexual abuse by clergy. Part of the plan also involves making “non-monetary” commitments to the survivors that the diocese described as “important aspects of any healing process.” Other details of the plan include setting up a trust fund exclusively for the benefit of survivors, paying at least 50 percent of what the diocese owed to general unsecured creditors, restructuring secured loans, and settling with insurance carriers.

Homer City Generation L.P., which owns three coal-fired electric power plants in the U.S., filed for bankruptcy yesterday, Reuters reported. The company, which expects to continue operations during the chapter 11 process, said the reorganization would eliminate $600 million of its debt. NRG Energy Services will continue as the operator of Homer City's three plants, which are located near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and have an aggregate net capacity of 1,884 megawatts. The reorganization plan was supported by about 86 percent of the Homer City's secured noteholders, but is subject to approval from the Delaware bankruptcy court, the company said in an emailed statement.