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Pier 1 Imports Inc. is planning a significant increase in store closings as the distressed home-furnishings chain seeks to cut costs and turn around operations, Bloomberg News reported. The company expects to announce the new round of shutdowns when it reports results for its third fiscal quarter next week, according to people with knowledge of the plan. The company aims to restructure out of court, in part by closing stores and using the savings to boost liquidity. Filing for bankruptcy is an option under consideration if Pier 1 falls short of its goals. The company also expects to disclose cuts in its debt load, listed at more than $300 million in its previous quarterly report. Pier 1 posted eight straight quarters of declining sales and six consecutive quarterly losses as shoppers defected to new e-commerce players like Wayfair Inc. and conventional giants like Walmart Inc. that have expanded in the category. Turnaround executive Robert Riesbeck took over as chief executive officer in November, almost a year after Pier 1 replaced a previous CEO and said that it would explore strategic alternatives.

The owner of a Beverly Hills mansion once owned by publisher William Randolph Hearst wants to put the property, now in bankruptcy, back on the market for $125 million, a lower price than what he had asked for in recent years, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Beverly House, a 3.5-acre estate featured in the memorable horse-head scene from “The Godfather,” has been on and off the market over the last decade, listing for $195 million in 2016 and $135 million last year. The estate’s owner, Leonard Ross, put the property into chapter 11 bankruptcy last month to avoid foreclosure and has asked a bankruptcy judge for permission to list the property again at the reduced price. If the request is approved in bankruptcy court, the estate will hit the market at a time when Los Angeles has a number of high-end properties for sale and many homes listed for more than $100 million have seen their price tags cut. Ross has selected Los Angeles real-estate agents Mauricio Umansky and Santiago Arana of real-estate brokerage firm The Agency to market and potentially sell Beverly House, according to court papers filed on Tuesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Los Angeles County.

Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting is scheduled to testify in front of the House Financial Services Committee on Jan. 29, setting up a potential fight between House Democrats and Otting on the Community Reinvestment Act overhaul, MorningConsult.com reported. Otting missed appearing with other financial regulators in early December, although he submitted written testimony. His absence drew harsh criticism from committee Democrats, who have grown increasingly concerned over the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s plans to revamp the Community Reinvestment Act. The OCC has led efforts to overhaul, for the first time in a quarter-century, the Community Reinvestment Act. The more-than 200-page proposal released by the OCC and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. would allow banks more flexibility on meeting the government mandate for lending to poor neighborhoods. In an added wrinkle, while the FDIC has signed on to the OCC’s plan, the Federal Reserve has not, creating potential compliance issues for banks if the regulators continue without a joint rule.

The Trump administration finished regulations this week that will make it easier for wealthy Americans to invest in and benefit from opportunity zones, a tax incentive created in 2017 that was intended to funnel investment into low-income communities, the New York Times reported. Treasury Department officials and proponents of the zones said the regulations would push more funds into designated areas by giving investors more clarity and flexibility on how to deploy their money. “It’s a prerequisite for a functioning market to have regulatory certainty,” said John Lettieri, president and chief executive of the Economic Innovation Group, a Washington think tank that created the concept of an opportunity zone and helped get it into law. “It’s hard to overstate how much of an impediment a lack of regulatory clarity has been, for opportunity zones to work as Congress intended.” Opportunity zones convey tax advantages to investors who take the proceeds of a capital gain, like the sale of a stock or a business, and invest them through a fund into a qualifying project in a designated zone. They were a largely overlooked provision of President Trump’s tax law when Congress was debating it in 2017, but in the two years since the law's signing, the zones have stirred interest from investors on Wall Street, along with philanthropists and city leaders looking to revitalize distressed areas. Critics said that Treasury’s regulations did not address a fundamental flaw with the zones, which lack legal guidelines to ensure the investments actually benefit low-income areas and residents. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), who has introduced legislation that would force investors in the zones to disclose more information about their spending and its effects, said that “at every step, the Treasury Department has made it easier for wealthy investors to reap a taxpayer windfall” from the zones.

It’s been three months since the Trump administration released its plan to end government control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and Democratic lawmakers still have unanswered questions, Bloomberg News reported. In a yesterday letter, Senate Banking Committee Democrats put almost two dozen queries to the Treasury Department and Federal Housing Finance Agency, the companies’ regulator. Topics ranged from the potential impact releasing Fannie and Freddie will have on the trillions of dollars in mortgage securities that the companies backstop to whether housing costs will rise. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats who signed the letter said that their questions are crucial in assessing whether the administration’s proposals will ensure “housing access and affordability, and the continued success of the secondary mortgage market.” The lawmakers urged a “prompt response” to their letter, which reflects ongoing concerns that President Donald Trump might try to bypass Congress in freeing Fannie and Freddie. Treasury’s September plan suggested dozens of reforms to protect Fannie and Freddie from another housing crash, shrinking their dominant market shares and creating new entities to compete with the companies. But specific details, such as determining how much capital Fannie and Freddie will need to survive a financial crisis and how they will raise it, still need to be ironed out.

A contractor’s bankruptcy filing has stalled construction of an already-delayed $250 million luxury apartment complex in St. George, Staten Island, the New York Post reported. Hollister Construction Services of Parsippany, N.J., filed for chapter 11 protection on Sept. 11, though its website states that it will “continue to conduct business.” However, the developer behind the Lighthouse Point project, Triangle Equities, told the Staten Island Advance that it is “close” to hiring a new contractor for the project, which was supposed to see residents move in next year. The exact timetable won’t be known until a new contractor is on board. The project also has a partial stop-work order issued by the city Buildings Department for “inadequate guardrails” and housekeeping at the site, according to the Advance. Lighthouse Point, next door to the Staten Island Ferry terminal, and opposite the new Empire Outlets mall, includes a 116-unit apartment building, 20 percent of which will be earmarked for affordable housing, along with 65,000-square-feet of retail, including an upscale grocery store, and office space.

A federal judge has dismissed an involuntary bankruptcy petition filed by small creditors of a Florida company that purchased the massive Railway Exchange building downtown with plans for a major redevelopment, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. U.S. District Judge Charles Rendlen III noted that over 90 percent of the creditors of the building’s owner, HH St. Louis Railway LP, an entity connected to Florida-based Hudson Holdings, supported dismissing the involuntary petition. The petition was filed last month by local consulting firms Development Strategies and Lafser & Associates and security firm Hudson Services for what they said were unpaid services worth collectively about $115,000. They weren’t secured creditors, unlike Hudson’s lender on the building purchase and some contractors. It was the latest sign of trouble for the daunting redevelopment project that envisioned hundreds of apartments and office space in the giant, 1.2 million-square-foot historic building that was once the flagship Famous-Barr department store and headquarters for its parent, May Department Stores. This year, an architect on the project sued in St. Louis Circuit Court, and the lender for the building purchase joined that action. But even they said that the bankruptcy petition was unnecessary and threatened any chance of success the project might have.