%1

The Lionel Sawyer & Collins law firm, which went out of business at the beginning of the year, filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation at the end of January, owing creditors more than $3.37 million, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported today. The law firm, once considered the Nevada’s largest legal house, said in a voluntary filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Las Vegas that it had assets of $931,626 in personal property. The only secured creditor, according to the filing, was Western Alliance Bank, which is owed $2.86 million. Lionel Sawyer & Collins was founded 48 years ago by attorney Sam Lionel and former Nevada Gov. Grant Sawyer.

Exide Technologies Inc. won court approval yesterday to start the process of polling creditors on the Chapter 11 plan the battery maker hopes will see it out of bankruptcy by the end of March, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey said that he would sign off on voting materials at a hearing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. Exide has backing for its reorganization from holders of about 35 of its senior bonds.

The newly formed Wet Seal Inc. creditors’ committee negotiated an increase in the clothing chain’s sale price and changes in financing for the company’s bankruptcy reorganization, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Wet Seal, a mall-based retailer catering to women 13 to 24, worked out a deal before its Jan. 15 bankruptcy filing that gives lender B. Riley Financial Inc. 80 percent of the stock in exchange for a $20 million investment. The remaining 20 percent was earmarked for unsecured creditors. The committee, formed Jan. 30, persuaded Riley, the parent of liquidator Great American Group LLC, to raise the purchase price to $25 million.

U.S. Bancorp agreed to pay $18 million to former customers of Peregrine Financial Group Inc. to resolve claims that the large U.S. bank aided a massive fraud by the failed futures brokerage's now-imprisoned founder, Russell Wasendorf Sr., Reuters reported yesterday. A consent order approved yesterday resolves claims by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission that the Minneapolis-based lender's U.S. Bank NA unit let Wasendorf treat an account meant to hold Peregrine customer funds as his "personal piggy bank." The regulator's June 2013 lawsuit against U.S. Bancorp, one of the 10 largest U.S. banks by assets, was its first against a bank following Peregrine's bankruptcy 11 months earlier. Prosecutors said that Peregrine, which was also known as PFGBest, collapsed after Wasendorf stole roughly $215 million from more than 13,000 victims over nearly 20 years, covering his tracks by forging bank statements and submitting false regulatory reports. The CFTC said about $36 million of the funds misappropriated by Wasendorf came from a U.S. Bank NA account. Peregrine had been based in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

New Jersey's shuttered Revel Casino yesterday asked a federal judge to lift a stay on its pending sale to a Florida investor, arguing in a filing that creditors will be harmed if the deal does not go through soon, Reuters reported yesterday. IDEA Boardwalk LLC, which operated a bar and a nightclub at Revel — one of four Atlantic City casinos that closed down last year — has sued to block the sale, saying that it will lose $16 million in investments under the deal. On Friday, U.S. Circuit Court Judge Thomas Ambro ordered the sale delayed while he studies legal challenges. Revel Casino said in its filing yesterday that the deal must close by Feb. 9 or it could collapse. That would be "catastrophic," the filing said, because it would destroy $100 million of creditor value, based on the sale price plus additional costs to liquidate assets.

The team unwinding Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. boosted its estimate of how much cash it expects to bring in for creditors to $90.6 billion, buoyed primarily by a settlement with Lehman Brothers Bankhaus A.G., the German arm of Lehman’s investment-banking operation, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The new projection represents a $1.8 billion increase over an estimate late last summer of $88.8 billion, according to the company’s most recent cash flow estimates, filed on Friday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. Lehman Brothers officially emerged from chapter 11 protection in March 2012 and began paying back creditors the following month. Although Lehman is out of bankruptcy protection, its case is far from over and will likely continue for years as a bankruptcy team continues to liquidate Lehman’s assets. Lehman said that the wind-down of the business “may extend beyond 2018.” As a result of the gains on its real estate, derivatives and private-equity investments, Lehman Brothers still has $13.8 billion on its balance sheet after making six distributions of $66.1 billion to creditors. Lehman paid out $9 billion to third-party creditors in October.

Caesars Entertainment Corp. supports demands by creditors for an independent examiner to review recent deals by the casino company's bankrupt operating unit, Reuters reported yesterday. Caesars' operating unit plans to cut its debt to $8.6 billion from $18.4 billion. The operator of 38 casinos has blamed a saturated U.S. gambling market and sluggish economic recovery for its financial problems. Creditors led by the Appaloosa Management hedge fund have said that Caesars "plundered" billions of dollars in choice assets from the operating unit, including Planet Hollywood and The Linq in Las Vegas. The creditors asked for the appointment of an examiner to investigate the operating company's deals dating back to 2010. The parent company said in a filing with Chicago's U.S. Bankruptcy Court on Sunday that an examiner would confirm the property transfers were fair and provided billions of dollars in cash to the operating unit.

Tommy Thompson’s bizarre odyssey took another twist this week after federal officials arrested the fugitive treasure hunter in Florida, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Thompson is the engineer and undersea explorer who in the 1980s found the wreck of the SS Central America, a U.S. mail steamer that went down off the North Carolina coast in 1857 with 18 tons of gold. Within a few years, Mr. Thompson had recovered more than three tons of gold, silver and other treasures, estimated to be worth at least $100 million. He’s been fighting with former partners and investors ever since. In 2012, a federal judge in Ohio issued arrest warrants for Thompson, who had skipped hearings for a civil case pending since 2006. Creditors of Thompson’s Columbus Exploration LLC, one of whom claimed to be owed nearly $2 million in legal work, sought to force the company into bankruptcy in early 2013 while Thompson was on the run. A couple of months later, a receiver was ordered to take control of the Columbus Exploration and sister company Recovery LP. A judge tossed the cases that September.

Cache Inc., the women’s clothing chain known for helping popularize Armani and Versace designs in the U.S., is planning to liquidate the company after filing for bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. The retailer has sought bids for firms that can help shut down all its stores and sell assets in a bankruptcy. A liquidation would add Cache to the ranks of other mall-based retailers that have ceased operations since the end of last year, including Delia’s Inc., Deb Stores and Body Central. Unlike those chains, Cache is based in more upscale shopping centers, many of which are still thriving. Still, the company faces pressure from e-commerce sites and fast-fashion rivals such as Hennes & Mauritz AB, which offer a cheaper alternative.

A U.S. federal appeals court has delayed the sale of the shuttered Revel Casino in Atlantic City pending an appeal by a company that ran its nightclub and boardwalk dance club, Reuters reported on Saturday. The order, issued late on Friday by Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Court Judge Thomas Ambro, gives attorneys for Revel until Tuesday to respond to the appeal filed by IDEA Boardwalk, Llc. The company, along with several restaurants which had also leased space inside the casino, had lost a challenge to the sale in a Jan. 21 federal court. The sale to Florida developer Glen Straub, who bought Revel in bankruptcy court for $95.4 million, was expected to be completed by Feb. 7. The nightclub appealed that order, claiming the sale could cost it some $16 million it had invested to build bars, bathrooms and sound systems as part of its 25-year lease.