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Objections from dissenting creditors are threatening to delay Neiman Marcus’s bankruptcy restructuring after the group said an acceptable plan must preserve the right of minority stakeholders to pursue legal claims related to a 2018 asset transfer, Bloomberg News reported. The retailer asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David Jones to postpone a hearing on certain details of its plan to July 21 as it looks to address concerns from lower-ranking creditors. Neiman filed for chapter 11 protection on May 7 after striking an agreement to let senior creditors take control of the chain. But lower-ranking creditors say the court must first allow a full investigation into a controversial asset transfer that shifted value out of investors’ reach and lowered recovery values. The company’s plan, however, includes broad liability releases that would protect previous owners and directors, including Neiman’s private equity owners Ares Management Corp. and the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board, from future claims. The lower-ranking creditors drew up their own restructuring plan, which differs from Neiman’s namely in its treatment of the future liabilities, and asked the court for permission to formally submit it as an alternative. The rescheduled hearing, which was originally set to take place on Friday, will include a response to that request, according to an agenda filed with the court.

Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.) introduced legislation yesterday that would provide a tax credit for businesses to safely reopen and pay for extra safety measures amid the coronavirus pandemic, The Hill reported. The Healthy Workplaces Tax Credit would provide a refundable tax credit against payroll taxes for 50 percent of the costs incurred by a business for COVID-19 testing, personal protective equipment (PPE), disinfecting, extra cleaning and reconfiguring work spaces to adhere to social distancing guidelines. The credit is limited to $1,000 per employee for a business’s first 500 employees, $750 per employee for the next 500 employees and $500 for each employee after that. For example, if a restaurant with 40 employees spends $60,000 on PPE, testing, disinfecting and plexiglass shields, it would receive a $30,000 tax credit against its payroll. The legislation is intended to encourage and enable businesses to take the recommended steps to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in their workplaces. Rice, who is on the House Ways and Means Committee, introduced the bill as an addition to legislation from Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) that would create a temporary tax credit to offset costs of cleaning.

The pandemic has devastated many of the country’s small-business owners; nearly a quarter of companies closed either temporarily or permanently in March and April, according to a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. But for firms that have been part of their communities for 100 years or more, there’s more at stake than livelihood — there’s legacy and, in some cases, generations of family ties, the New York Times reported. Since March, the pandemic has claimed at least a half-dozen businesses in or near the century club. For example, the Boston Hotel Buckminster, which opened in 1897, closed its doors; Ritz Barbecue, which opened in a small shed in Allentown, Pa., in 1927, served its last ribs and ice cream last month; Hickory Grove Greenhouses, just north of Allentown, decided to close after 103 years; and Michigan Maple Block Company, a wood products company in northern Michigan, is shuttering its manufacturing plant and laying off 56 workers after 139 years. For business owners trying to chart the future — whether they’re the fifth generation or the second — Jennifer Pendergast, executive director of the Center for Family Enterprises at Northwestern University recommends that they find someone who can be their “truth teller,” who will look at the numbers and the emotions of continuing. If the math doesn’t work and the business isn’t viable, there’s no point in keeping it alive. But if it is, then she encourages owners to ask themselves if the work is still meaningful to the family.

A Justice Department official said Neiman Marcus Group Chief Executive Geoffroy van Raemdonck and other top executives don’t deserve up to $10 million in bonuses unless the bankrupt company can prove the recipients boosted earnings, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Under U.S. bankruptcy law, Neiman isn’t allowed to give “pay-to-stay” bonuses simply to incentivize executives to remain with the company through its bankruptcy, Henry Hobbs, the Justice Department lawyer monitoring Neiman’s bankruptcy, wrote in court papers filed on Tuesday. The luxury retailer filed for bankruptcy in May, proposing to slash billions of dollars in debt and come out of bankruptcy with a clean balance sheet by September. Mr. van Raemdonck stands to collect anywhere between $1.5 million and $6 million in bonuses depending on the company’s performance under Neiman’s bonus plan, which requires court approval. Neiman already paid more than $3 million in bonuses this year to Mr. van Raemdonck and seven other top executives before the company filed for bankruptcy. The company’s bonus proposal includes a sliding scale tied to certain measures of the company’s performance, such as the level of sales receipts and timely progress on its restructuring process, according to court papers.

J.C. Penney Co. Inc. said yesterday that it would cut about 1,000 jobs and shutter 152 stores as the U.S. department store chain looks to emerge from chapter 11 protection and the COVID-19 crisis, Reuters reported. The layoffs would impact corporate, field management, and international roles and eligible departing employees would receive a severance package. The company is also in talks with its landlords regarding store closures. Penney filed for bankruptcy protection in May, with plans to explore a possible sale, joining a spate of brick-and-mortar retailers to crumble under the pressure brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. On Tuesday, Calvin Klein owner PVH Corp. also announced a reduction in the number of office employees.

The company that drove Dean & Deluca into bankruptcy is offering $10 million for another shot at running the gourmet grocer, the New York Post reported. Thailand-based real estate company, Pace Development, which sunk millions into a failed Dean & Deluca expansion before filing for chapter 11 protection in April, outlined its plan for a second chance in a Manhattan federal court filing this week. The plan calls for $5 million of a $10 million investment to be used to pay off $26.5 million owed to vendors and other creditors, court papers show. The company didn’t say what it will do with the remaining $5 million, but it will presumably use the money to relaunch stores, experts said. “Dean & Deluca over expanded and lost what made them special,” said distressed debt experty Adam Stein Sapir. “But if they can bring it back to its former glory with a smaller footprint, it has a lot of potential.” The company, founded in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood in 1977, filed for bankruptcy protection on March 31 at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. But its problems started well before then. After buying the grocery for $140 million in 2014, Pace plowed $240 million into expanding it around the world at a time of growing competition in the gourmet food industry. By 2018, upscale vendors like Ceci Cela Patisserie and Elenis bakery had sued Dean & Deluca for not paying its bills, and by mid-2019 Pace shuttered all of its owned retail outlets and its e-commerce website. By last year, the company’s franchisee-owned stores were its only source of income — but even that spigot has dried up, the filing said. Just two stores, both in Honolulu, remain open and neither has paid Pace royalty fees for months, the company lamented.

Paper Store LLC, a chain of 86 stationery and gift stores located in the Northeast, has filed for bankruptcy and plans to look for a buyer, the latest retailer to resort to chapter 11 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the Wall Street Journal reported. “In short, the filing of these chapter 11 cases has been caused by the COVID-19 crisis,” Chief Restructuring Officer Don Van der Wiel said in papers filed yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Worcester, Mass. Paper Store sells ornaments, clothes, shoes, accessories and, since the COVID-19 pandemic, items such as face masks. The privately owned Acton, Mass.-based company said the pandemic caused temporary store closures, hurting revenue. It also said sales of sports items were weaker after the New England Patriots failed to advance in the National Football League playoffs. Although recently it has been allowed to reopen many of its stores, “the disruption and additional cost of trying to preserve the health and safety of nearly 2,000 full- and part-time employees has only made matters worse,” Van der Wiel said. Paper Store is expected to post revenue of $133 million this year, down from $167 million in 2019, he said. The company said its online sales are projected to grow to $18.8 million this year from $5.9 million last year. Sales of personal protective equipment are doing well it said.

The parent company of century-old women’s apparel brand New York & Co. has filed for bankruptcy protection and plans to liquidate all its stores after being hurt by forced closures and supply-chain issues during the coronavirus pandemic, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. New York-based specialty retailer RTW Retailwinds Inc., which also owns the Fashion to Figure and Happy x Nature brands, filed for chapter 11 protection on Monday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Newark, N.J., listing assets of about $405 million against nearly $450 million in debt. RTW said that it has started store-closing sales and inventory liquidations at its 387 retail stores in 32 states while it considers a sale of its e-commerce business and intellectual property. The retailer has hired liquidators Great American Group LLC, a subsidiary of B. Riley Financial Inc., and Tiger Capital Group LLC to conduct the closing sales, which are expected to conclude by Aug. 31, court papers show. The company said 92 percent of its brick-and-mortar stores have reopened after temporary closures due to the pandemic. Founded in 1918 as Lerner Shops and formerly known as New York & Co., the business changed its name to RTW in November 2018. RTW had employed about 5,000 people in February, with roughly 3,600 of those employees working part time.