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Tailored Brands Inc. said late Friday it expects to emerge from bankruptcy by the end of the month after the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas approved its reorganization plan, MarketWatch.com reported. "We are extremely pleased to have reached this milestone," Chief Executive Dinesh Lathi said in a statement. The retailer behind Men's Wearhouse, Jos. A. Bank and other apparel said it had progressed steadily through its financial restructuring, invested in online and contactless order capabilities, and "further curated" its offerings. "These and other actions taken while in chapter 11 are the continuation of a strategic transformation that started well before COVID-19 and will position us to compete and succeed for the long term," Lathi said. Tailored filed for bankruptcy in August, part of a wave of pandemic-related bankruptcies that engulfed retailers in particular.

Libbey Inc. is in the final stages of a complex plan to emerge from bankruptcy as a private company with new ownership and a clean financial slate, the Toledo (Ohio) Blade reported. While Libbey first expected to exit bankruptcy proceedings in September, the company this week filed another in a series of extensions that moves the projected date to Nov. 6. Libbey, a Delaware-based corporation headquartered in Toledo, filed for Chapter 11 back in June — a first in its 202-year history — after declaring it had assets of between $100 million and $500 million and liabilities between $500 million and $1 billion. The company’s creditors numbered between 10,000 and 25,000 and its second-quarter financial statements of this year show that it lost $83.8 million, or $3.64 cents a share, in that quarter alone.

J.C. Penney believes it will emerge from bankruptcy protection before Christmas under a new ownership agreement that would save tens of thousands of jobs, the Associated Press reported. The beleaguered, century-old retailer said yesterday that it has filed a draft asset purchase agreement with the two biggest mall owners in the U.S. Substantially all of J.C. Penney’s retail and operating assets will be acquired by Brookfield Asset Management Inc. and Simon Property Group through a combination of cash and new term loan debt. Details of the deal that will save roughly 70,000 jobs and avert a total liquidation first emerged last month during a bankruptcy hearing. J.C. Penney, which even before the pandemic had struggled to compete with the likes of Amazon.com, Target and Walmart, became one of the largest retailers to file for chapter 11 protection this year amid a wave of store closures forced by the spread of COVID-19 infections in the U.S. The Plano, Texas, retailer will shed nearly a third of its stores in the next two years as it restructures, leaving just 600 locations open.

Bankruptcy Judge David Jones on Tuesday approved the reorganization plan of California Resources Corp. (CRC), one of the state's major oil and gas producers, paving the way for it to exit chapter 11 just three months after filing for bankruptcy protection, the Palm Springs (Calif.) Desert Sun reported. CRC is one of three fossil fuel companies — alongside Chevron and Aera, which is jointly owned by Shell and ExxonMobil — that produce the lion's share of oil and gas in the Golden State. The drilling company bills itself as a major job creator that plays an important role in domestic energy independence, while conservationists argue the firm is likely to eventually saddle taxpayers with a huge cleanup bill for orphaned wells. When CRC filed for bankruptcy protection on July 15, it was having trouble making payments to its funders and proposed a plan to shed more than $5 billion in debt. Tuesday's chapter 11 plan ultimately came with overwhelming support from creditors, according to the lawyers present at the hearing, and could allow the company to eliminate that debt, in part by employing a debt-for-equity swap.