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A North Carolina real estate investment firm that owns the Wyndham Garden Hotel and other Manhattan real estate has put four properties into chapter 11 with a plan to sell them at a bankruptcy auction, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The four New York properties — three hotels and a vacant lot — are valued at some $200 million and are located in choice neighborhoods across Manhattan. The properties filed for bankruptcy court protection on Thursday amid a legal battle between their owners. Gemini Equity Partners LLC, the Huntersville, N.C.-based owner of the properties, has lined up initial offers for the hotels and land, subject to higher bids at a bankruptcy-court-supervised auction. Proceeds from the sales are slated to fully repay creditors, owed a total of about $135 million, according to Gemini vice president Christopher La Mack.

There is no quick relief in sight for thousands of former Corinthian College students seeking loan forgiveness in the wake of the for-profit giant’s collapse, according to a Washington Post commentary on Friday. The Obama administration said on Thursday that it will take several months before the government forgives the federal student loans of borrowers who believe they were defrauded by the career college chain. The timeline comes as former Corinthian students contemplate suing the government for collective debt relief rather than waiting for officials to sort through each individual claim. By law, students can apply to have their federal loans discharged if they can prove a school used illegal or deceptive tactics in violation of state law to persuade them to borrow money for college. The process, known as a “defense to repayment claim,” has rarely been used and is widely considered to be complicated and difficult to navigate. As it began receiving hundreds of claims from Corinthian students, the Education Department appointed an independent monitor in June to oversee and streamline the process. In his first report released on Thursday, monitor Joseph A. Smith said that the department has hired four attorneys to review and analyze state laws involved in the 4,140 claims received to date.

A judge in the Bahamas said on Friday that a liquidator could take control of the stalled Baha Mar resort project, but limited the official’s powers, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Justice Ian Winder of the Supreme Court of the Bahamas, taking the middle ground in the ruling read in court on Friday, appointed a liquidator specifically for the purpose of preserving the $3.5 billion project’s assets, rather than authorizing the liquidator to develop a plan for the project’s completion. Justice Winder also set a Nov. 2 hearing date to consider the request of the owner of the project to have the Bahamian insolvency proceeding thrown out completely. The owner of the project, known as Baha Mar Ltd., had opposed a Bahamian government request for the appointment of a liquidator and has proceeded instead with a restructuring process in the U.S. under chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code.

Gun maker Colt Defense and its creditors are close to a deal on a plan to bring the company out of bankruptcy, but if it fails, the business will go on the auction block next month, Reuters reported yesterday. Colt filed for bankruptcy earlier this year due to falling sales of its sport rifles and the loss of military contracts. The company's private equity owner has been battling its bondholders for control of the West Hartford, Connecticut-based business, and the parties are pressured by Colt's dwindling cash. "It's fair to say the parties are very close to a deal," Colt lawyer John Rapisardi told the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware. "The parties are working to finalize a term sheet and an agreement can be reached in a couple days." Colt wanted more time for talks but was forced to court by Morgan Stanley, which is using its bankruptcy loan to demand the start of a court-supervised auction process. Bankruptcy Judge <b>Laurie Silverstein</b> paused the hearing and sent the parties into a conference room to work out an agreement. The parties agreed to auction procedures, but postponed by three weeks the deadline for bids and a sale. An auction would be held on Oct. 20.

The trustee winding down Lehman Brothers Holding's brokerage says hundreds of former employees still waiting to recover more than $250 million in deferred compensation don't deserve to jump in front of other unsecured creditors in the bankruptcy-payout line, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Lawyers for James W. Giddens, the trustee in charge of unwinding Lehman's brokerage, want to reclassify the employees' secured claims, which receive priority under bankruptcy law's payment scheme, to general unsecured status. Based on analysis by the trustee's counsel, Giddens said in court papers filed on Wednesday that the deferred compensation claims should be reclassified because the former employees don't possess a lien on any Lehman property. Thus, they aren't entitled to secured status under bankruptcy code, the trustee said.

Bankruptcy Judge Enrique S. Lamoutte authorized a November auction of the Trump International Golf Club in Puerto Rico, where an investor group will start the bidding at $2 million, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Leading off the bidding for the golf and country club, which isn't owned by presidential contender Donald Trump but instead licenses his name, is a $2 million offer from OHorizons Global LLC. Under the auction timeline Judge Lamoutte approved, rival bids will be due on Nov. 16. If any are received, an auction will be held Nov. 23. The judge agreed to review the winning bid at a Dec. 1 sale hearing.

A bankruptcy judge cleared Patriot Coal Corp. to sell its remaining assets, including its Federal mining complex in West Virginia, at a September auction, Dow Jones Newswires reported yesterday. Bankruptcy Judge Keith Phillips yesterday said that he would sign off on the Sept. 9 auction. An affiliate of the Virginia Conservation Legacy Fund will lead off the bidding with its offer to take responsibility for $400 million in liabilities — workers' compensation, black lung and environmental — tied to the assets. The auction proposal had received objections from Patriot's unsecured creditors' committee and lender agent Barclays Bank PLC regarding the $5 million breakup fee Patriot sought to offer VCLF should it lose the bidding. However, those were resolved during the hearing with an agreement to require any winning bidder's offer to provide enough cash to cover the fee.

RadioShack Corp., the iconic consumer electronics chain, was driven into bankruptcy because of a takeover scheme by hedge fund Standard General LP, according to a lawsuit by a committee for creditors who say they are owed more than $500 million, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. By delaying actions that might have preserved some of the chain’s value, Standard General allegedly sought to take over RadioShack at the lowest price possible. The creditors say that turmoil at the company last year, including an October loan transaction that paved the way for the hedge fund to win control, led to RadioShack’s February bankruptcy. The lawsuit targets Standard General, its principal investment officer, company lender Wells Fargo Bank and RadioShack’s former top managers, including Joseph Magnacca, the former chief executive.

Tom Clarke, CEO of Kissito Healthcare in Roanoke, Va., turned heads last week when his Virginia Conservation Legacy Fund said that it would acquire some of the last remaining assets of Patriot Coal Corp., subject to bankruptcy court approval, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported on Saturday. Through a new coal company it formed, ERP Compliant Fuels LLC, Clarke’s environmental group would assume some $400 million of bankrupt Patriot’s liabilities for mine restoration and worker compensation. It would take over some closed mines and one that’s still producing, and it would keep mining coal there. Meanwhile, his group would plant millions of trees — enough to absorb 10 to 30 percent of the climate change-causing carbon dioxide that burning the coal would emit. They would get the amount certified and attach it to the coal, creating a premium product.

Life Partners Holdings Inc. won’t have to entertain competing bids to reorganize its assets, which include stakes in life insurance policies with a face value of $2.4 billion, until at least next month, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. The bankrupt dealer of so-called “life settlements” can retain control of its chapter 11 case for now, Bankruptcy Judge Russell Nelms ruled on Friday. The company’s bankruptcy trustee has warned that competing bids could derail any successful reorganization. Life Partners, founded in 1991, sold stakes in life insurance policies to around 22,000 individuals. Those purchasers got a payout on their investment when the insured person died. The catch is they had to pay premiums while that person still lived: the longer they lived, the more the premiums ate into — or outmatched — potential returns. Life Partners relied on an expert to estimate life expectancies, a key factor in the price investors would pay for their stake. It filed for bankruptcy in January after a Texas jury sided with the Securities and Exchange Commission, finding the expert’s death estimates were low-balled. Unwilling to pay a $46 million judgment, the Waco, Texas-based company sought court protection.