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C&J Energy Services Ltd. said yesterday that it has entered into a restructuring support agreement (RSA) with certain of its secured lenders representing greater than 50 percent of the outstanding principal amount under the Company’s secured credit facility, according to a company press release. The terms of the RSA provide for the implementation of a restructuring that contemplates, among other things, a debt-to-equity conversion of the entire secured credit facility and an equity rights offering through a chapter 11 plan of reorganization. The restructuring will enable the company to deleverage its balance sheet — eliminating approximately $1.4 billion of existing debt — while continuing daily operations in the normal course. Read more. 

Listen to a panel of experts drill down through the issues involved in an oil and gas bankruptcy at ABI's 23rd Annual Northeast Bankruptcy Conference starting on Thursday at the Omni Mount Washington Resort in Bretton Woods, N.H. Register here.

Get a better understanding of what happens when an oil, gas or other natural resources company goes bankrupt. Order your copy of ABI's revised and expanded When Gushers Go Dry: The Essentials of Oil & Gas Bankruptcy, Second Edition. 

Boston Grand Prix, the local organizing entity of the since-canceled Seaport IndyCar race, is filing for bankruptcy, Boston.com reported today. The news comes amid the legal and financial mess resulting from the millions of dollars the group owes race ticket buyers and stakeholders. Boston Grand Prix said in its bankruptcy filing that it has less than $50,000 in assets, while listing liabilities of more than $1 million and between 1,000 and 5,000 creditors. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey recently threatened and moved toward legal action against Boston Grand Prix in an effort to recoup ticket holders’ money.

China Fishery Group Ltd. sought U.S. bankruptcy protection four months after defaulting on $300 million of bonds amid investigations by market regulators in Singapore and Hong Kong, Bloomberg News reported today. The Hong Kong-based company yesterday filed its chapter 11 petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York, listing as much as $50 million of liabilities and more than $500 million of assets, according to court documents. Its Singapore-listed parent company Pacific Andes Resources Development Ltd. filed a separate chapter 15 petition for companies reorganizing outside the U.S. The filings allow the group to fend off creditors and bondholders from seizing its assets, primarily the fishery business in Peru it acquired from Oslo-based Copeinca ASA in 2013. China Fishery said that efforts this year to sell the Peru fishery assets were not successful amid enforcement threats from some creditors. It received two undisclosed proposals in December that valued the business at $1.7 billion. The companies in the group “have been facing severe financial stress and encountered extreme challenges in their efforts to resuscitate and revive the business” after going in and out of provisional liquidation, it said in the court petition.

Triangle USA Petroleum Corp., an oil and gas explorer working one of the largest shale oil reservoirs in North America, filed for bankruptcy with a plan to restructure that will keep its parent company out of chapter 11, Bloomberg News reported today. Triangle USA is active in the North Dakota and Montana regions of the Williston Basin, where it uses horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. The company and its affiliates fell victim to the price slump that began in 2014, and bankruptcy proceedings were started “with the objective of realigning their capital structure with new market realities,” Chief Restructuring Officer John Castellano said in papers in Delaware federal court. After several months of negotiations, the company reached an agreement with holders of 73 percent of its senior unsecured notes and plans to get out of bankruptcy by converting the debt into equity in a new, restructured business. Parent Triangle Petroleum Corp. and an oilfield services affiliate, RockPile Energy Services LLC, weren’t included in Wednesday’s chapter 11 filing. Read more. 

Listen to a panel of experts drill down through the issues involved in an oil and gas bankruptcy at ABI's 23rd Annual Northeast Bankruptcy Conference on July 14-17 at the Omni Mount Washington Resort in Bretton Woods, N.H. Register here.

Get a better understanding of what happens when an oil, gas or other natural resources company goes bankrupt. Order your copy of ABI's revised and expanded When Gushers Go Dry: The Essentials of Oil & Gas Bankruptcy, Second Edition. 

AstroTurf LLC has filed for bankruptcy protection after a $30 million loss in a patent fight with France’s Tarkett, which makes the rival FieldTurf synthetic-grass product, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The bankruptcy filing is meant to preserve AstroTurf’s ability to challenge the judgment while allowing it to sell its business in a deal that promises a return to creditors. Private equity-owned Sportfield Deutschland Holding GmbH has offered $92.5 million. Court papers indicate AstroTurf will receive only about $16 million of the purchase price if the deal clears bankruptcy court. Other sellers, including AstroTurf owner Textile Management Associates Inc., would collect the rest of the money under the proposed transaction. Court papers say Textile Management controls AstroTurf’s intellectual property and the deal won’t work without it. Textile Management is also AstroTurf’s chief secured lender, owed nearly $38 million. The loan is connected to a promissory note signed in December 2015, less than three months after a jury found the company had infringed a patent controlled by Tarkett’s FieldTurf USA Inc. unit.

ION Worldwide Inc., a maker of wearable digital recorders that competes with industry leader GoPro Inc., has filed for bankruptcy after seeing its revenue drop significantly last year, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The New Jersey company has already reached a restructuring support agreement with one of its lenders, which would cut more than $15 million in debt from its balance sheet and allow iON to stay in business. ION Chief Financial Officer Chris Oatway said in court papers filed last week that the cash-starved company has been mired with problems, including disputes with one of its licensed brands and an intellectual-property lawsuit with GoPro. ION makes a line of wearable cameras in a variety of sizes, home-security products and dash cams, among other products, under the iON and Contour brands. ION saw its revenue drop to $12.4 million in 2015 from more than $25 million in 2014, Oatway said in court papers. The company sought to cut costs, and it laid off employees, but that wasn’t enough to stave off bankruptcy.

A privately owned, Missouri-based hotel company founded by John Q. Hammons filed for bankruptcy protection Sunday, just weeks before the start of a trial to determine if the company must sell its hotels, Dow Jones Newswires reported on Friday. More than 70 affiliates owned by the John Q. Hammons trust filed for protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Kansas City, Kan. Based in Springfield, Mo., the company owns and manages 35 hotels for companies like Marriott, Sheraton and Hilton's Embassy Suites. The companies listed assets and debts each of more than $1 billion, according to court papers. The bankruptcy filing involves a group of hotels that Hammons retained ownership of after the 2005 buyout of his hotel business by Jonathan Eilian, the former managing director of private-equity giant Starwood Capital Group. The 2005 buyout involved some 43 hotels owned by John Q. Hammons Hotels. Hammons himself received an equity interest in the acquiring company — a partnership with Eilian — as well as preferred stock valued at $328 million and some $300 million in loans.

Southern Season Inc., the North Carolina-based specialty food store that closed its Libbie Mill-Midtown store in Henrico County in April, has filed for chapter 11 protection, the <em>Richmond Times Dispatch</em> reported on Sunday. The Chapel Hill, N.C., specialty food retailer sought bankruptcy protection on Friday as it reorganizes its business to focus on smaller stores and growing online sales. Southern Season is in the midst of closing its store in Mount Pleasant, S.C., near Charleston, and is scrapping expansion plans in Atlanta as it focuses on smaller versions of its stores. Reproducing the big-format store concept that saw success at its flagship original location in Chapel Hill isn’t translating in other markets, the company said.

Zelenka Farms, a plant grower for big-box retailers including Lowe's Cos., Kmart, Shopko and Home Depot Inc., has filed for bankruptcy protection, blaming an unusually wet spring, Dow Jones Newswires reported yesterday. Lawyers who put Zelenka Farms into chapter 11 protection on Friday told a judge that they are looking for buyers to take over the Irving, Texas-based company's six farms, which employ 1,519 people located in Tennessee, Oregon and other states. During a court hearing on Monday, Zelenka Farms bankruptcy lawyer Holland O'Neil said the company's financial troubles began in 2014 but worsened dramatically after an unexpectedly rainy April and May, leaving it without enough money to pay down part of a loan before a June 3 deadline.

UCI International LLC, a maker of replacement auto parts owned by New Zealand’s richest man, filed for bankruptcy protection late on Wednesday night, after talks with bondholders about a balance-sheet restructuring failed, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The Lake Forest, Ill., company, said that it was forced to file for chapter 11 protection after it was unable to reach an out-of-court deal with bondholders who include funds managed by BlackRock Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Credit Suisse Asset Management. UCI skipped a $17.25 million interest payment to the bondholders, who are owed $400 million, in February, according to Brian Whittman, the company’s chief restructuring officer. The bond debt is left over from a 2011 leveraged buyout led by New Zealand billionaire Graeme Hart, whose Rank Group acquired UCI a little more than five years ago in deal valued at $980 million.