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Discount home-goods retailer Christmas Tree Shops is headed for liquidation after defaulting on a loan that funds its bankruptcy, the Wall Street Journal reported. The 82-store chain filed for bankruptcy in May with plans to close a small number of underperforming stores and to exit chapter 11 by August. The plan was to restructure the company’s finances while keeping its ownership intact. The retailer took out a $45 million bankruptcy loan, including roughly $20 million in fresh capital, from its lenders. But the creditors terminated the loan after the company defaulted on the terms due to worsening revenues and liquidity, according to a notice filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., on Thursday. The company and its stakeholders have reached an agreement this week to liquidate the remaining roughly 70 stores unless a buyer emerges within the next week or so, according to the filing. “Unfortunately, circumstances have resulted in the plan really not being able to go forward because quite simply, the debtor doesn’t have the time nor the money to go forward with the plan,” said Harold Murphy, a lawyer for the retailer, during a Thursday court hearing. The retailer will no longer present a plan to exit bankruptcy because of the change of course, said Murphy.

A U.S. bankruptcy judge on Friday said she would not allow slot machine operator Lucky Bucks to settle legal claims arising out of a $250 million dividend to insiders, siding with noteholders who are seeking to claw back those payments, Reuters reported. The noteholders, including investment managers BC Partners, Marathon Asset Management and Monarch Alternative Capital, said that Lucky Bucks should not be allowed to settle their claims for a mere $15 million. They asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Karen Owens in Wilmington, Del., to liquidate Lucky Bucks Holdings, the corporate parent company that sold them their notes, and separate it from the reorganization of the operating company Lucky Bucks LLC. Owens agreed, ruling that Lucky Bucks Holdings could be converted to a chapter 7 liquidation because it had no creditors other than the aggrieved noteholders. Those noteholders have already voted to reject the company’s chapter 11 settlement, making a chapter 11 reorganization impossible, she said. Judge Owens delayed her ruling from immediately taking effect, however, saying that a premature chapter 7 conversion of the parent company might trigger change-in-control regulations that would make it harder for the operating subsidiary to maintain its slot machine licenses.

Overstock.com intends to sunset its company name and rebrand as Bed Bath & Beyond after purchasing that company's intellectual property assets in bankruptcy, Overstock CEO Jonathan Johnson said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Overstock, which chose not to bid on any of Bed Bath & Beyond's retail locations or inventory, will remain an online-only home goods retailer, combining Overstock's strengths with a better-known and stronger brand name, Johnson said in an interview. "An opportunity arose in bankruptcy to get the pieces that we loved and not have them burdened by the things we didn't like," Johnson said. "We've long liked the Bed Bath and Beyond name, but we didn't like the stores, the inventory, so don't expect stores from us." Overstock's "generic" name has held the company back, and it does not really reflect the company's current focus on selling home goods and furniture online, Johnson said.

Ameritrans Express LLC, a contract delivery service for the U.S. Postal Service, has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy amid claims by some of its contractors that they have not been paid since March, Freight Waves reported. Ameritrans Express LLC, headquartered in Dumfries, Virginia, filed its petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on Wednesday. The company was founded by Frederick Amankwaa in 2013 and is a contract delivery service provider for the Postal Service. Members of a Facebook group, which was set up by Ameritrans contractors in March, claim they haven’t been paid since then. One member of the group alleges she hasn’t been able to access the money she contributed to her 401(k) account.

U.S. plant-based food business Tattooed Chef is seeking a buyer after failing to raise funds to secure its future, Just Food reported. The private-label and branded manufacturer, set up in 2018, plans to file chapter 11 protection in California, and “intends to pursue a sale of substantially all of its assets”, Tattooed Chef announced in a statement on Friday. While the company will continue to operate for the time being, an undisclosed number of employees at its plants in California and New Mexico have been “provided notice of intended layoffs.” Before initiating the chapter 11 proceedings, Tattooed Chef said that it “evaluated a wide range of funding possibilities”, despite receiving $12m in unsecured loans from chairman and CEO Sam Galletti. Tattooed Chef joins UK-based The Meatless Farm, which also failed to raise new funds and consequently ended up selling its meat-free brand to peer VFC Foods last month with the company remaining in a state of bankruptcy. Another plant-based business, The Very Good Food Company in Canada, collapsed in January.

Luxury cruise company Vantage Deluxe World Travel is filing for bankruptcy and selling its operation, amid ongoing investigations, lawsuits, and hundreds of consumer complaints, Boston25news.com reported. The company announced on June 29 that it filed for chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Massachusetts and agreed to be acquired by United Travel Pte. Ltd., an affiliate of Nordic Hamburg and Heritage Expeditions. Vantage laid off its employees June 20, weeks after Consumer Rescue first reported the company quietly postponed all its cruises through Aug. 28. Consumer Rescue provided Boston 25 an email that shows Vantage was still contacting its customers about future trips as recently as June 26. he Mass. Attorney General’s Office says it received 1,120 consumer complaints about Vantage since Jan. 1, 2020, including 478 complaints filed in 2023. 108 complaints came from Bay State residents. The AG’s Consumer Advocacy and Response Division said it had recovered more than $1.2 million for Vantage customers. The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office filed a lawsuit against Vantage earlier this month, accusing the company of “deceptive and unfair business practices” and taking advantage of older residents “by continuing to hold their refunds hostage.”

A bankruptcy court was right to throw out a $32 million lawsuit by rapper Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson against his former law firm, a federal judge in New Haven, Connecticut, ruled on Friday, Reuters reported. U.S. District Judge Vanessa Bryant dismissed Jackson's claims of legal malpractice against U.S. law firm Reed Smith and its former partner Peter Raymond. Jackson had argued that Reed Smith pursued an "uninformed" legal strategy in the run-up to a trial that led to a $7 million judgment against him, and that it had a conflict of interest because another lawyer for Jackson had also represented rapper Rick Ross, a potential witness in the trial. Ross never testified. Jackson did not say how his lawyers' loyalties were divided or how the conflict led to his loss at trial, the judge said. "Without more, the court cannot conclude the conflict of interest impacted counsel's discovery strategy, or that the conflict caused Jackson to lose at trial," Bryant said. The firm represented Jackson after he was sued by a woman whose sex tape he had posted online as part of a feud with Ross. Jackson dropped Reed Smith as his counsel in March 2015. Four months later, he lost at trial and was ordered to pay $7 million in damages. Jackson filed for bankruptcy in Connecticut three days after the 2015 verdict. During the bankruptcy proceedings, Reed Smith filed a claim seeking more than $609,000 in allegedly unpaid attorney fees.

Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. selected baby goods company Dream on Me Industries Inc. as the initial winner of an auction for the bankrupt retailer’s BuyBuy Baby brand, with the hope that a higher bid might emerge to keep the brand’s stores alive, according to court papers, Bloomberg News reported. Although New Jersey-based Dream on Me won the initial auction held on Thursday for the company’s intellectual property, its bid could be superseded if a higher or better bid emerges for the company as a going concern, court papers show. Everyday Health Media LLC was selected as the sole backup bidder for the BuyBuy Baby assets. The terms of Dream on Me’s bid have not yet been disclosed. The company extended the deadline for BuyBuy Baby’s going concern auction to July 7. The auction was originally scheduled for Thursday. Bed Bath sold its flagship brand this week to Overstock.com Inc. for $21.5 million, after the company was unable to secure another buyer interested in keeping stores open.

Serta Simmons Bedding has completed its financial restructuring and emerged from chapter 11 five months after filing for protection under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in January, Furniture Today reported. The bankruptcy court ruled earlier this month that the company’s plan could move forward. At the time of its filing, the Serta Simmons included a plan to emerge quickly with financing in place. As part of the go-forward plan, the company has put together a board of directors that includes a familiar bedding executive: former chairman and CEO of Simmons Bedding, Charlie Eitel. Mark Genender, managing partner of Bristol Growth Capital and also an alum of the Simmons board, has been appointed chairman. Other members of the board include current CEO Shelley Huff and Brandi Thomas, group vice president and chief audit executive for General Electric, both of whom were already board members. Under the plan, the company says it has “ample liquidity and a more flexible capital structure” to execute its turnaround plan. Through the bankruptcy process, Serta Simmons reduced its debt from $1.9 billion to $315 million, lowering its annual interest expense by more than $100 million. In addition, the company has secured a $100 million revolving credit facility.

The owner of TV shopping network ShopHQ, iMedia Brands, has filed for bankruptcy citing reasons including inflation, declining cable subscribers and lower discretionary spending, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The Eden Prairie, Minn.-based company, which also owns apparel brand Christopher & Banks and leather-goods business J.W. Hulme, is “actively engaged with a potential acquirer” and is working to finalize the sale soon, iMedia Chief Transformation Officer James Alt said in a sworn declaration filed in bankruptcy court Thursday. The company entered chapter 11 with $272 million in assets and $374 million owed to creditors, according to filings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. It plans to fund its bankruptcy with cash provided by lenders including Crystal Financial, SLR Business Credit and Siena Lending Group, court records show. Alt said that iMedia filed for bankruptcy less than a week after an investment firm sued it in a state court in Utah for allegedly breaching terms on a loan. Most of iMedia’s revenue is generated by its flagship network, ShopHQ, as well as the male-oriented ShopBulldogTV, ShopHQHealth and German shopping network 1-2-3.tv. Sales at the company’s TV network segment fell to roughly $456 million in the fiscal year ended Jan. 28 from $478.9 million the prior year. The segment had a loss of $101.9 million, compared with a loss of $13.5 million a year earlier. The company as a whole reported a net loss of $70 million, widening from $22 million the previous fiscal year.