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Grace Youth and Family Foundation Files for Chapter 11

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A Butler, Pa.-based nonprofit that began in 1990 as a community outreach program is reorganizing, the Pittsburgh Business Times reported. Grace Youth and Family Foundation (GYFF) has filed for chapter 11 protection at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. GYFF has assets of less than $50,000 and liabilities ranging between $500,000 and $1 million, according to court documents. The action was prompted after GYFF allegedly defaulted on a loan from First Commonwealth Bank, said David Fuchs of Carnegie-based Fuchs Law Office LLC, who is representing the nonprofit. GYFF, which serves at-risk youths and their families, owns two buildings in Butler and a field located outside the city. “We’re going to ask the court to allow us to retain a broker to market the properties,” Fuchs said. “If we can sell some of the properties, it provides an avenue to resolve First Commonwealth Bank’s claim and allow for … a simple reorganization task from that point forward.”

Rialto Bioenergy Enters Chapter 11

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Anaergia Inc. has announced that one of its subsidiaries, Rialto Bioenergy Facility LLC (RBF), has initiated voluntary chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of California, Recycling Today reported. RBF anticipates that, during the restructuring, it will continue operating its multi-feedstock bioenergy facility in Rialto, Calif., which can convert up to 700 tons per day of organic waste, such as food and yard waste and biosolids, into renewable natural gas (RNG) with the capability to generate renewable electricity, soil amendments and fertilizer. RBF, with offices in Carlsbad and a facility in Rialto, California, is 51-percent owned by Anaergia Services LLC, a wholly-owned Anaergia subsidiary. As a result of a lack of feedstock available to the facility, RBF has been unable to produce sufficient revenue to cover its costs and debt service. Anaergia says the feedstock shortfall is due to a delay in the implementation and enforcement of laws requiring organic waste diversion from landfills by the city of Los Angeles as required under its contracts with private waste management companies, as well under California’s SB 1383. The company says feedstock ramp-up is slow industry-wide.

Celsius Names Fahrenheit as Winning Chapter 11 Bidder

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Cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network selected Fahrenheit, a group of investors led by TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, to run the reorganized company as it moves toward emerging from bankruptcy, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Under the agreement, which is part of its chapter 11 exit plan, Celsius will distribute cryptocurrency to customers and will create a reorganized public company to manage illiquid assets, including its nascent bitcoin-mining business, according to papers filed in court Thursday. Fahrenheit is owned by Arrington’s investment firm Arrington Capital; crypto-mining company US Data Mining Group, also known as US Bitcoin; Proof Group Capital Management; tech entrepreneur Steven Kokinos; and crypto investor Ravi Kaza. The winning bidder is also affiliated with senior executives at distressed-debt specialist Fortress Investment Group. Celsius was one of the first in a wave of crypto lending platforms that failed last year. Selecting a manager for the company’s assets is among the first steps on its path out of chapter 11 and toward compensating hundreds of thousands of individual customers whose crypto holdings on the platform have been frozen since it filed for bankruptcy last summer.

JPMorgan Informs Some First Republic Employees of Job Losses

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JPMorgan Chase and Co. has notified some employees of First Republic Bank that they are not being given jobs, even temporarily, as it starts to integrate the failed lender, Reuters reported. The bank has offered employment to nearly 85% of First Republic employees in a transitional or full-time role, the source said. The estimated working period for temporary roles will be three months to a year, depending on the job. "We've been transparent with their employees and kept our promise to update them on their employment status within 30 days," JPMorgan said in an emailed statement. Regulators seized First Republic and sold its assets to JPMorgan in early May, in their effort to resolve the largest U.S. bank failure since the 2008 financial crisis. First Republic took one of the hardest knocks during the banking sector crisis in March, when depositors fled en masse, spooked by the collapse of two mid-sized lenders. The bank tried to salvage itself from the turbulence, but its disclosure of more than $100 billion in outflows in the first quarter and a plan to explore new options drove shareholders to dump its stock.

KKR-Backed GenesisCare Preps for Bankruptcy Filing Within Days

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GenesisCare, a provider of cancer-care services backed by KKR, is preparing to file for bankruptcy within days, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The Australia-based company, which also operates in the U.S. and Europe, is in talks to receive roughly $200 million in new financing to see it through bankruptcy. GenesisCare is advised by lawyers from Kirkland & Ellis. China Resources Group is also an owner of the company. GenesisCare has been struggling under a debt load in part stemming from its $1.5 billion acquisition of 21st Century Oncology in 2020. Healthcare service provider 21st Century Oncology filed for bankruptcy in 2017, blaming changes in insurance reimbursement practices in addition to government penalties and settlements. It emerged from chapter 11 in 2019. Since October, S&P Global has cut GenesisCare’s credit ratings twice, each time pushing it one notch deeper into distressed territory, raising expectations that the company would default.

Bankruptcy Judge Rules Directors of Failed SVB Can Tap D&O Insurance

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A bankruptcy judge is allowing current and former officials with the parent company of Silicon Valley Bank to tap into the $210 million in insurance coverage available through directors and officers liability policies to defend themselves against litigation that followed the collapse of the bank, the Insurance Journal reported. The unsecured creditors' committee for the SVB Financial Group bankruptcy had objected to the expense, saying any insurance money spent on defending the directors and officers would not be available for other potential litigation or any settlements or judgments. The committee argued that the directors and officers aren’t entitled to any of the insurance proceeds because their own mismanagement caused the collapse of the bank. But Judge Martin Glenn, chief bankruptcy judge for the Southern District of New York, said the insurance policies themselves state that the banks directors and officers get first dibs on any proceeds from the D&O policies. “Even if it is true that the directors and officers do have liability, that is precisely why such insurance exists,” Judge Glenn said in an opinion released on Monday. “The Committee cites no legal authority for the proposition that directors and officers need to be ‘blameless’ to access insurance that is specifically intended to cover their defense costs and liability in these situations.”

FTX Seeks to Claw Back $240 Million from Embed Acquisition

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Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX is suing former chief executive Sam Bankman-Fried and others over the acquisition of stock trading platform Embed, looking to claw back hundreds of millions in funds to repay creditors and customers, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The lawsuit alleges former FTX executives did little due diligence before an “astronomical” $240 million was paid for a business now valued at no more than $1 million, the highest bid received in bankruptcy for the asset, according to the lawsuit filed Wednesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. “The result of the bidding process leaves no doubt” that the more than $240 million paid to acquire Embed “was wildly inflated,” the new FTX management team said in the lawsuit. The bidders in bankruptcy “figured out what FTX insiders didn’t bother to assess before the Embed acquisition, namely, that Embed’s vaunted software platform was essentially worthless.” In pursuing the Embed acquisition, “the FTX insiders prioritized speed above all else,” the suit said. At the time of the acquisition, Embed had a “minuscule” customer base and “serious bugs plaguing its software platform,” according to the lawsuit. The new FTX management also filed lawsuits against former Embed employees and shareholders.

Bankrupt Crypto Lender Voyager Digital Predicts 35% Customer Payout

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Crypto lender Voyager Digital said Wednesday that customers will soon recover about 35% of their cryptocurrency deposits as the company winds down operations after a failed buyout attempt by crypto exchange Binance.US., Reuters reported. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Wiles approved Voyager's liquidation plan at a court hearing in Manhattan, allowing the company to return about $1.33 billion in crypto assets to customers and end its efforts to reorganize under chapter 11. Customers may be able to make withdrawals by June 1, Voyager's official creditors’ committee said. Any distribution beyond the initial 35% would depend on the result of future litigation. Voyager filed for bankruptcy protection in July, citing volatility in cryptocurrency markets and a default on a large loan made to crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC). Two sale attempts failed during Voyager's bankruptcy. It initially sought to sell its assets for $1.42 billion to FTX, a deal that failed when FTX imploded in November. Binance.US stepped in with a $1.3 billion offer, but called off the deal on April 25, citing a "hostile and uncertain regulatory climate."

Regulators Rebut Claims by Silicon Valley Bank’s Ex-CEO

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When asked in a Senate hearing this week who was to blame for the demise of Silicon Valley Bank, the lender’s former chief executive, Greg Becker, had plenty of ideas, blaming regulators, the bank’s board and its own customers for bringing it down. Yesterday, senior officials from two of the bank’s main regulators, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, told members of the same Senate panel that some of the impressions Becker had left lawmakers with were false, the New York Times reported. The contradictory congressional testimony threatened to pose yet another problem for Becker, who is facing an investigation by federal criminal prosecutors into his handling of the failed California lender as well as a shareholder lawsuit accusing him and another senior leader of misleading investors about the bank’s health in the lead-up to its failure. James N. Kramer, a lawyer for Mr. Becker, said Mr. Becker stood by the statements he had made. The regulators’ statements were part of a hearing held by the Senate Banking Committee on how bank oversight should look in the future in light of the failures of three regional banks this spring. It came two days after Mr. Becker appeared alongside former senior leaders of Signature Bank, a New York lender that collapsed just after Silicon Valley Bank did and prompted the federal government to take drastic steps to prevent widespread panic in the banking system.

The Scramble to Take Over What Bed Bath & Beyond Left Behind

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Engaged couples are struggling to navigate Bed Bath & Beyond’s faltering wedding registry system. Suppliers are scrambling to cultivate new business partnerships. Landlords are quickly closing deals on leases for suddenly vacated big-box locations. After Bed Bath & Beyond’s recent chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, the winding down of the 52-year-old home-goods giant has led to frustration, sorrow and a race to capitalize on the liquidating retailer, the New York Times reported. Julie Strider, a spokeswoman for Bed Bath & Beyond, said the retailer was searching for a third-party partner to transfer customers’ data so shoppers could complete their registries. She added that customers were still able to view and download the existing registry data. In the meantime, other companies are swooping in to fill the void for the newly engaged. Etsy unveiled a wedding registry on May 10 and said thousands of couples had signed up. Zola, an online registry business, has received “several hundred emails” from couples asking to transfer over their Bed Bath & Beyond registries, Emily Forrest, a company spokeswoman, said. Competitors of Buy Buy Baby, which Bed Bath & Beyond owns and is also being liquidated, are seeing benefits, too. Babylist, an online registry business, said the number of registries created on its platform in the last few weeks since Bed Bath & Beyond filed for bankruptcy was 35 percent higher than a year ago. More than 1,200 registry accounts have been transferred to its site, Natalie Gordon, the company’s chief executive, said.