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Fashion Square Mall owners filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday, while accusing its lender — The Bancorp — of cutting off promised funding for planned renovations, the Orlando Sentinel reported. The bankruptcy filing on Friday automatically halts a foreclosure lawsuit filed on Tuesday by The Bancorp against Orlando’s Fashion Square, which alleged that the mall owner had fallen behind on payments for its $42.2 million loan. Bankruptcy documents state that the mall owner, an affiliate of Tennessee-based UP Development, withheld payments on the loan because it learned that Bancorp was "misrepresenting" details of the renovation plans. But the bank has alleged that UP has "grossly mismanaged" the mall and failed to pay taxes.

Lensar, an Orlando-based developer of surgical ultrafast laser systems for cataract treatment, has filed for chapter 11 protection, Photonics.com reported yesterday. The company was acquired a year ago by social commerce business, Alphaeon, in a debt, cash and stock deal valued at around $59 million. Coupled with a restructuring, the bankruptcy filing will allow Lensar to cut its debt levels. PDL Biopharma, its senior secured creditor, supports the decision. With financial support from PDL, Lensar intends to continue to pay all employee obligations, including employee wages, provide health care and other benefits, and all current operating expenses without interruption. With the chapter 11 case expected to conclude in the second quarter of 2017, a Lensar representative said that the company will continue working with its vendors, suppliers and partners as normal during and after the bankruptcy process.

A federal judge on Friday froze the assets of Boston Grand Prix president John Casey as part of an $11 million bankruptcy case stemming from the collapse of an Indycar race that had been planned for the Seaport District last Labor Day weekend, the Boston Globe reported on Saturday. The ruling by Bankruptcy Judge Joan N. Feeney came after Casey was accused last week in court filings of using the Boston Grand Prix as “his personal piggy [bank].” “John Casey spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of Boston Grand Prix’s money for personal expenses without regard for the interests of creditors,” said attorney Kate Cruickshank of the firm Murphy & King, who is representing creditors in the case. “It’s the job of the bankruptcy trustee to recover assets belonging to Boston Grand Prix for all creditors.”

C&J Energy Services Inc. emerged from chapter 11 protection on Friday, eliminating about $1.4 billion of debt from its balance sheet and more than $80 million of annual interest expense, the Houston Business Journal reported. The old C&J stock has been cancelled, and the reorganized C&J will have approximately 55.5 million outstanding shares. The new shares will be issued to certain debt holders as part of the restructuring plan’s debt-for-equity conversion provisions, a rights offering and a backstop commitment agreement. Former C&J stockholders received seven-year warrants to purchase up to a combined 2 percent of the company’s new common stock, and holders of legacy C&J unsecured creditor claims will get seven-year warrants to buy up to 4 percent. C&J also entered into a new $100 million revolving credit facility and paid off outstanding amounts under its prior debtor-in-possession facility with proceeds from a $200 million equity rights offering. The company exited restructuring with more than $220 million in total liquidity, including cash and its new credit facility. Read more. 

The featured keynote at ABI's 2017 Annual Spring Meeting will be Spencer Abraham, former U.S. Senator and former U.S. Secretary of Energy. Click here to register! 

Get a better understanding of what happens when an oil, gas or other natural resources company goes bankrupt. Order your copy of ABI's revised and expanded When Gushers Go Dry: The Essentials of Oil & Gas Bankruptcy, Second Edition. 

Bankrupt renewable energy company SunEdison Inc. has reached a deal with a spinoff company that helps clear the way for a $150 million sale of its solar materials business to a Chinese buyer, Reuters reported yesterday. Chinese solar equipment maker GCL-Poly Energy Holdings Ltd agreed to buy the business in August, part of SunEdison's drive to shed assets to raise money to repay its creditors. The sale ran into trouble due to an objection from SunEdison Semiconductor, which was spun off by SunEdison in 2014. The spin-off company argued in an October court filing that it had not consented to transfer of intellectual property licenses as part of the deal. SunEdison has resolved that objection to help close the sale and will extend a services agreement with its affiliate through September at reduced rates.

The clock is ticking on a lucrative piece of work for lawyers at Jones Day, Kirkland & Ellis and Proskauer Rose as the $18 billion bankruptcy of Caesars Entertainment Corp.’s operating arm approaches a possible end, American Lawyer reported today. Combined with Winston & Strawn, whose work for a court-appointed examiner in the case is finished, those four firms have already billed $150 million for their time through September, the latest available report in the U.S. bankruptcy court docket in Chicago. All told, Las Vegas-based Caesars has spent more than $354 million on restructuring professionals and law firms from January 2015 through November 2016. By law, the debtor also pays the legal bills for most of its creditors. Kirkland & Ellis, which represents Caesars Entertainment Operating Co., has billed more than $70 million in the case. Winston & Strawn charged nearly $32 million for its work. Proskauer, which represented a group of unsecured creditors, has billed around $25 million. And Jones Day, going to bat for a group of second-lien junior bondholders, has a tab of roughly $24 million, according to court filings.

North Philadelphia Health System (NPHS), which stopped paying numerous vendors in 2015 and then closed St. Joseph's Hospital last March after state officials halted a long-running subsidy, filed for bankruptcy protection late last week in Philadelphia, Philly.com reported. NPHS said that it will continue to provide drug and alcohol services and psychiatric care at Girard Medical Center, at Eighth Street and Girard Avenue. The tax-exempt organization said it owed $24.8 million to its 30 largest unsecured creditors. Independence Blue Cross topped the list, with $10.87 million owed for employee benefits.

Bonanza Creek Energy Inc. has filed petitions in U.S. Bankruptcy Court to pursue a pre-packaged reorganization, the Denver Business Journal reported today. Denver-based Bonanza Creek announced plans two weeks ago to file for chapter 11 protection. The company said yesterday that its pre-packaged plan is intended to de-leverage its transactions by equitizing about $867 million of its existing unsecured bond obligations. The company will also "substantially bolster its liquidity position through a $200 million rights offering for new equity, to be backstopped by certain unsecured noteholders," according to the filing. Also under the plan, the company's existing shareholders will receive 4.5 percent of the equity of a reorganized Bonanza Creek and three-year warrants to acquire up to 7.5 percent of equity. Read more. 

The featured keynote at ABI's 2017 Annual Spring Meeting will be Spencer Abraham, former U.S. Senator and former U.S. Secretary of Energy. Click here to register! 

Get a better understanding of what happens when an oil, gas or other natural resources company goes bankrupt. Order your copy of ABI's revised and expanded When Gushers Go Dry: The Essentials of Oil & Gas Bankruptcy, Second Edition. 

A bankruptcy judge yesterday authorized creditors to begin voting on Energy Future Holdings Corp.’s chapter 11 exit plan after the Texas power giant flip-flopped on a deal with senior lenders, the Wall Street Journal reported today. In a flurry of action in the final days of 2016, Energy Future walked away from a peace pact with its top-ranking lenders and cut a new deal with junior bondholders York Capital Management Global Advisors LLC, GSO Capital Partners LP, Avenue Capital Management and Angelo Gordon & Co. The new deal is supposed to ensure Energy Future gets out of bankruptcy quickly. However, it raised hackles in the ranks of senior lenders, major investment funds that had expected to collect nearly $800 million in premiums in addition to payment in full on their loans under a litigation settlement. Instead, they will get what they are owed on the loans but have to continue a court fight if they want to collect the premiums. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi yesterday found that Energy Future had given voting creditors enough information to make up their minds on whether to support the latest version of its often-revised chapter 11 plan. Read more. (Subscription required.) 

Make sure to read the cover article of the January ABI Journal, “Possible Makeover for Make-Wholes After EFH Decision.”