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The Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame has filed for bankruptcy, the Tulsa World reported. The news broke in the middle of an eviction hearing before a special judge in the Tulsa County District Court Small Claims Division. Jason McIntosh, executive director of the Jazz Hall of Fame, confirmed the bankruptcy filing but declined to comment further at the advice of counsel. The Tulsa County Industrial Authority filed a lawsuit in November seeking to terminate its lease with the Jazz Hall and recover $8,474 in past-due taxes and utilities. The lawsuit also alleges that the Jazz Hall fell so far behind in its utility payments that electricity to the building was turned off on Oct. 19. The Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame leases the Union Depot, at First Street and Cincinnati Avenue, a facility bought and refurbished by the county with $4 million in Vision 2025 funds. It pays $1 a year in rent and is required to cover tax, insurance and utility costs. The bankruptcy filing puts an automatic stay on the Industrial Authority’s case until the bankruptcy proceedings are completed.

Women’s apparel retailer Christopher & Banks Corp. has filed for bankruptcy while taking steps to close all of the company’s roughly 450 stores, the latest U.S. retailer planning to shut down for good over debt issues and pandemic disruptions, Wall Street Journal reported. The Plymouth, Minn.-based specialty retailer filed for chapter 11 protection Thursday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Camden, N.J., with the intention of holding going-out-of-business sales at store locations and finding a buyer for the company’s e-commerce business. The company is the latest victim “of the retail apocalypse that was first created by a customer migration away from brick-and-mortar stores and most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to a sworn declaration filed by President and Chief Executive Keri Jones. The company depended heavily on in-store traffic, which has declined in recent years due to competition from big-box retailers, rising online sales and changing consumer preferences, Ms. Jones said in court papers. As a result, Christopher & Banks has already determined that a sale of its traditional brick-and-mortar business is not achievable. The company said it reached out to about 180 potential investors and buyers but found no takers for all or some of its stores, Ms. Jones said. However, the e-commerce business is an attractive asset for buyers, she said. The retailer, which sells privately branded women’s apparel and accessories, was founded in 1956 as Braun’s Fashions in Minneapolis and was later rebranded as Christopher & Banks in 2000. The company now operates 449 locations in 44 states, including 314 Christopher & Banks’s Missy, Petite, Women stores, 76 outlet locations, 31 Christopher & Banks stores, and 28 stores selling women’s plus sizes, C.J. Banks.

Ferrellgas Partners LP, whose Blue Rhino propane tank exchange network serves backyard barbecuers across the U.S., filed for bankruptcy to unload debts left over from a failed expansion, Bloomberg News reported. The company sought federal court protection from creditors in Delaware with assets and liabilities of $100 million to $500 million, according to its chapter 11 petition. The debtor is a holding company, but the operating company, Ferrellgas LP, isn’t part of the bankruptcy and will continue to run without interruption. Ferrellgas will remain an employee-owned business and there will be no impact on customers, employees, vendors, suppliers or distributors, according to a spokeswoman. The company has almost 800,000 customers across the U.S. and Puerto Rico and a staff of nearly 5,000 people, according to a Ferrellgas statement. Overland Park, Kansas-based Ferrellgas, burdened with a turbulent propane business and a high debt load, previously said it intended to file for bankruptcy. The holding company debt will be eliminated, more than $1.5 billion of operating company debt will be refinanced, and more than $1 billion of new capital will be raised at the operating company level.

Dearborn’s (Mich.) Henry Ford Village (HFV) is operating with a business-as-usual approach while a chapter 11 filing works its way through the courts, the Press and Guide reported. First announced in late October, the retirement community is taking the action to reorganize its finances and to build a stronger future, officials said. According to a release from HFV, the legal process will help them improve their debt structure and other financial burdens, and grant the flexibility needed to make capital improvements. Under chapter 11, HFV can continue day-to-day operations while working toward the financial goals laid out in the filing.

A 110-year-old Green County, Wis., cheese cooperative has filed for bankruptcy but the farmers who own the co-op and supply milk to the Twin Grove facility have found temporary buyers for their milk, the Wisconsin State Journal reported. Maple Leaf Cheese Cooperative and Maple Leaf Cheesemakers failed to reach agreement on a contract, and production at the plant ended this week. The co-op, which owns the building and some of the equipment inside, filed for chapter 11 protection on Wednesday to restructure its debts so it could buy more time to find a new partner to make cheese at the plant. The 25 farmers have found temporary markets for their milk, but the hope is to reopen the cheese plant in the next three to four months so the farmers can return to supplying milk to the plant, located southeast of Monroe, Wis. The cooperative is hoping that the bankruptcy court will authorize payments owed to patrons for milk delivered prior to Wednesday’s petition date. Maple Leaf Cheesemakers announced in October that it would cease production at the Twin Grove plant in early December, which left farmers scrambling to find new homes for the combined 3.5 million pounds of milk they supplied monthly to the cheesemakers.

Propane supplier Ferrellgas Partners LP has reached a prearranged deal with bondholders for the holding company with no employees to file for bankruptcy while keeping its operations out of chapter 11, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The proposed deal will allow the company’s employees, as well as chairman and interim chief executive James Ferrell, to retain ownership of operating company Ferrellgas LP. “We have a reached an agreement with a substantial majority of our noteholders that will preserve our almost 100-year-old history and maintain ownership by our nearly 5,000 global employees,” Ferrell said. The parent company, Ferrellgas Partners, plans to file for bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., the company said in a regulatory filing Friday. Under a pre-packaged bankruptcy plan, the company will convert over $350 million in notes at the parent company into ownership units. Ferrellgas has been in forbearance since the summer on the $350 million in parent company notes that came due on June 15, and holders of 74 percent of those notes have agreed to the deal under which the parent company will file for bankruptcy.

Superior Energy Services Inc. filed for bankruptcy yesterday with a plan to eliminate almost all of its debt, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The Houston-based company, which rents and sells equipment used in oil and gas drilling, filed for chapter 11 reorganization in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston with a fast-track plan to cut the debt and hand over ownership to its bondholders. Superior expects to emerge from bankruptcy in early 2021, Chief Executive David Dunlap said. The company will ask the bankruptcy court to confirm its reorganization plan by Jan. 25, court filings show. The company has a pre-packaged restructuring plan that has been agreed to by holders of about 85 percent of the company’s $1.3 billion of senior unsecured notes, according to court papers filed by Chief Financial Officer Westervelt Ballard Jr. Superior, which has operations spanning the Asia-Pacific region, Africa, Europe and the Middle East, kept most of its businesses outside the U.S. out of bankruptcy, court filings show. Superior also has lined up a loan commitment of as much as $200 million to finance the company once it exits bankruptcy from parties including some of its note holders, according to the filings.

Lighthouse Resources Inc., a coal company with mines in Wyoming and Montana, and White Stallion Energy LLC, a miner that operates in Indiana and Illinois, both filed for bankruptcy after the Covid-19 pandemic dropped coal prices, Bloomberg News reported. Coal companies have struggled amid an increase in natural gas and renewable energy, and U.S. coal production in the second quarter of this year was the lowest it has been in almost 50 years, according to bankruptcy court filings. Coal has been hit hard this year because of the decrease in demand for electricity to run offices, factories and stores. That’s been true all over the world, and in the U.S., coal power plants have been the first place that utilities have cut back when they need less electricity. Peabody Energy Corp., the biggest U.S. coal producer, warned last month that it’s facing the same issues and that it may seek bankruptcy protection for the second time in five years if the market doesn’t improve. Lighthouse has debt of about $456 million, according to its declaration. White Stallion, which is majority owned by American Patriot Energy LLC, listed about $104 million of debt, according to its declaration. “In light of the challenging market conditions and other impacts on our business from COVID-19, we have been required to reduce costs and reorganize our business resulting in the reduction of our workforce in Montana,” Lighthouse Chief Executive Officer Everett King said in a news release. Lighthouse’s bankruptcy was prompted by decreased prices in Asia connected to the COVID-19 global pandemic and the fact that the cost to produce coal from its Decker Mine in Montana exceeds the sale price in its contract with an electric company. White Stallion suffered a net loss of about $30 million in 2019. In the months before its bankruptcy its financial situation worsened due to the decline in coal consumption at power generation facilities caused by the economic slowdown resulting from COVID-19, according to the bankruptcy declaration. The company expects that all its mines will remain idled during the bankruptcy process.