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Instant Brands on Wednesday said a bankruptcy court approved motions related to its chapter 11 petitions filed earlier in the week, MarketWatch.com reported. The company behind products including Pyrex and CorningWare said the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas authorized it on an interim basis to access and use financing from its existing lenders. This gives Instant Brands access to financing under a $125 million debtor-in-possession asset-based revolving credit facility, and a $132.5 million debtor-in-possession term loan credit facility, up to $100 million of which will be immediately funded on an interim basis. The interim approval granted by court enables Instant Brands to pay employee wages and benefits without interruption and pay vendors, suppliers and distributors in full under normal terms, the company said. "While we continue our efforts to strengthen our financial position, this court-approved financing gives us the ability to continue," said President and Chief Executive Ben Gadbois. Instant Brands on Monday said the company and certain of its affiliates initiated a voluntary chapter 11 process as it works to strengthen its financial standing.

Federal prosecutors investigating the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange said late Wednesday that, at least for now, they would withdraw several of the charges facing the company’s founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, the New York Times reported. In a court filing, the prosecutors said they would proceed to a trial in October without pursuing five of the 13 charges against Mr. Bankman-Fried — a set of accusations that the government added to the crypto mogul’s indictment in the months after he was extradited from the Bahamas in December. Among those charges was a bank fraud count, as well as an allegation that Mr. Bankman-Fried bribed a foreign government. The withdrawal of those counts was a victory for Mr. Bankman-Fried, who has argued that prosecutors should not have been allowed to charge him with additional crimes after his extradition. But the win came with a major caveat: The prosecutors asked the judge overseeing the case, Lewis A. Kaplan of Federal District Court in Manhattan, to schedule a second trial in early 2024 on those five counts. The prosecutors said that the delay was a procedural necessity. This week, Mr. Bankman-Fried won a ruling in the Bahamas, where FTX was based, granting him the ability to argue in court there that the Bahamian government should not consent to the additional charges. That legal dispute could take months to unfold.

Overstock.com will buy certain assets of bankrupt home goods retailer Bed Bath & Beyond for $21.5 million, the online retailer said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The deal, designated a stalking-horse bid under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, will include intellectual property, business data and rights to mobile applications, and will also assume certain liabilities of Bed Bath & Beyond. Bed Bath will continue to solicit other bids until the expected deadline on Friday and will undertake an auction next week to determine the winning bidder if additional bids are received, the company said. The retailer had delivered 10% of the purchase price in cash to an escrow agent in immediately available funds, Overstock said in a regulatory filing. Bed Bath & Beyond filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April after struggling with dwindling sales and a failed merchandising strategy.

Instant Brands Inc., the maker of Instant Pot and Pyrex kitchenware, will solicit offers to sell the business in bankruptcy while considering alternative transactions to restructure more than $500 million in debt on its balance sheet, a company lawyer said yesterday, Bloomberg News reported. Instant Brands lawyer Brian Resnick said during a virtual court hearing that company advisers will explore both options as the company tries to figure out how to get out of chapter 11. The company, which is owned by private-equity firm Cornell Capital, could use chapter 11 to restructure its balance sheet if it can find an investor to fund a chapter 11 plan; a buyer could purchase Instant Brands’ assets or lenders could take over the business in exchange for debt relief, Resnick said. “All those options are on the table,” he said. Instant Brands wants parties to submit indications of interest by July 27 and is targeting an Aug. 23 bid deadline, according to a slide show company lawyers played during Tuesday’s hearing. In the meantime, Instant Brands will continue operating its business as normal, Resnick said. The company already cleared an initial hurdle in its chapter 11: It won court approval for a roughly $133 million chapter 11 financing to fund the business and keep its factories running during bankruptcy. The structure is “somewhat unusual,” Instant Brands lawyer David Schiff said, necessitated by a complex debt deal the business used to raise new money early this year.

Sam Bankman-Fried, the indicted founder of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, wants a U.S. judge to throw out criminal charges brought against him following his extradition from the Bahamas, Reuters reported. In papers filed late Monday in Manhattan federal court, lawyers for the former billionaire said they asked Bahamas' Supreme Court to bar the country's government from authorizing U.S. prosecutors to move forward on the five charges, until their client has a chance to be heard. The lawyers said that a sixth charge, for violating U.S. campaign finance laws, should also be dismissed even though it was brought before his extradition, because the Bahamas did not consent to it. They want U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan to dismiss the charges, or try them separately from seven additional charges at Bankman-Fried's scheduled Oct. 2 trial. FTX was based in the Caribbean country. "To proceed otherwise would cause significant prejudice to Mr. Bankman-Fried and should not be permitted," his lawyers wrote on Monday. Bankman-Fried, 31, was extradited in December from the Bahamas to face charges he stole from customers, lied to investors and lenders, and violated campaign finance laws. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan later accused him of bank fraud and bribing Chinese officials.

Health care startup Thirty Madison, the company behind men’s hair loss medication ‘Keeps’ and other treatments, has acquired patient records of bankrupt birth control provider The Pill Club, Bloomberg News reported. The acquisition announced Tuesday includes medical records, patient lists, prescription files and other customer and insurance information, according to documents filed in Texas bankruptcy court. Thirty Madison said the deal ensures continued care for more than 100,000 patients “who would otherwise be without options” and that The Pill Club’s patients will transition to receiving care through the acquirer’s women’s telehealth unit, Nurx. A majority of patients’ medical records and prescriptions have already been securely transferred to Nurx and its affiliated pharmacies, the company said on its site. The Pill Club, which was backed by an affiliate of venture financing firm TriplePoint Capital LLC, filed bankruptcy in April after California authorities accused the startup of fraudulently billing the state’s Medicaid program for contraceptives customers didn’t order and counseling sessions it never provided. The startup paid $18.275 million to settle state regulators’ claims without admitting wrongdoing.

Boston-based wireless Internet service Starry plans to emerge from bankruptcy this summer with new ownership and a leadership change — but subscribers might not even notice. Under a reorganization plan approved last month by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Karen Owens in Delaware, existing shareholders will be wiped out and Starry’s lenders will own the company. For customers, however, Starry does not plan to cut back service or raise its current $50-per-month subscription rate, the company said on Tuesday. Cofounder and former COO Alex Moulle-Berteaux has replaced chief executive and cofounder Chet Kanojia. Kanojia, a serial entrepreneur who has run Starry since 2015, remains a member of the company’s board of directors.

Instant Brands, the maker of kitchen appliances known for its Instant Pot cooker, filed for bankruptcy Monday after succumbing to financial headwinds made worse as consumers slowed their discretionary spending to cope with inflation, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Illinois-based home appliance maker filed for chapter 11 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston, listing more than $500 million in both assets and liabilities. Private-equity firm Cornell Capital bought the company in 2019 and combined it with Corelle Brands, another kitchenware company. Sales have been falling, showing the difficulties that Instant Brands has faced growing its business on the back of a single hit product. The company, which also sells Pyrex and Snapware, has been working with restructuring advisers for months to improve its balance sheet and finances as consumers’ onetime obsession with the Instant Pot cooker slowed down. The company’s net sales decreased 21.9% in the first quarter this year compared with the same period in 2022, the seventh consecutive quarter of declining year-over-year sales, S&P Global said in a ratings downgrade of Instant Brands last week. The company ended March with roughly $95 million in liquidity and the business hasn’t been generating cash, according to the ratings report.

The Center for Autism and Related Disorders, which operates 130 treatment centers in the U.S., filed for bankruptcy in Texas on Monday with a plan to sell itself back to its founder, Reuters reported. The center suffered an $82 million net loss in the 12 months ending April 2023, largely as a result of long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., according to court filings in the Houston bankruptcy court. The company is majority-owned by the private equity firm Blackstone Inc, and it intends to sell itself in bankruptcy. It has a $25 million offer in hand from Dr. Doreen Granpeesheh, who founded the center in 1990. Granpeesheh stepped down as CEO when the company was sold to Blackstone in 2018, but she retained a 21% equity stake. A sale to Granpeesheh would provide a “seamless transition” for the company’s 3,500 patients and allow the company to retain the majority of 2,500 employees, according to court filings. Based in Henderson, Nevada, the company specializes in applied behavioral analysis therapy for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.

Slot machine operator Lucky Bucks is facing an early challenge to its chapter 11 case from junior bondholders after the closely held business proposed a restructuring that recoups a small fraction of more than $440 million in debt-funded dividends paid to shareholders in recent years, the Wall Street Journal reported. Unsecured bondholders including Marathon Asset Management, Monarch Alternative Capital and BC Partners objected on Monday to the company’s chapter 11 strategy that would mostly wipe out $300 million in debt they bought in 2021 and 2022. Lucky Bucks, among the largest operators of coin-operated amusement machines in Georgia, filed for chapter 11 on Friday blaming slowing consumer spending and greater enforcement of Georgia gaming regulations that took some of its machines at gas stations and convenience stores in the state offline. In bankruptcy, the business has proposed handing 100% ownership to senior lenders, while driving down its roughly $900 million debt load closer to $100 million. Lucky Bucks’ decline came after it loaded up on debt in 2021 and 2022 to fund shareholder distributions, including its majority owner, Dallas private-equity firm Trive Capital.