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Fashion Square Mall owners filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday, while accusing its lender — The Bancorp — of cutting off promised funding for planned renovations, the Orlando Sentinel reported. The bankruptcy filing on Friday automatically halts a foreclosure lawsuit filed on Tuesday by The Bancorp against Orlando’s Fashion Square, which alleged that the mall owner had fallen behind on payments for its $42.2 million loan. Bankruptcy documents state that the mall owner, an affiliate of Tennessee-based UP Development, withheld payments on the loan because it learned that Bancorp was "misrepresenting" details of the renovation plans. But the bank has alleged that UP has "grossly mismanaged" the mall and failed to pay taxes.

The combination of rising rates and a new political regime in the U.S. will bring about an uptick in corporate restructurings outside the energy space, creating new opportunities for investors in the riskiest parts of the debt market, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. That’s one of the conclusions from interviews with bond traders, bankruptcy lawyers, financial advisers and fixed-income analysts about the outlook for 2017. Investment options will become more diversified as the primarily energy-driven distressed market of recent years will broaden out, according to Tim Coleman, head of restructuring at PJT Partners Inc. Sectors to watch could include utilities, health care providers and more companies in the struggling brick-and-mortar retail sector. “We’re going to see more ordinary restructurings instead of just a lot of commodity-driven activity,” said Coleman, who has worked on major corporate restructurings including Ford Motor Co. and Delta Airlines Inc. “That’s probably better for the distressed space.” Restructurings will happen in certain pockets of pain where the broader economic trends exacerbate existing problems and “weed out very quickly those companies that have borrowed too much,” according to Mike Barnes, co-chief investment officer at Tricadia Capital Management, which oversees $2.8 billion.

Struggling retailer Sears Holdings Corp. has bought itself some breathing room through maneuvers that include the sale of its Craftsman brand for $900 million and the closure of 150 additional stores as it grapples with a prolonged sales slump and mounting losses, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The company has suffered through several weak quarters and warned yesterday that same-store sales fell as much as 13 percent in November and December. Over the past five years it has booked $8.2 billion in cumulative losses. The moves by Sears Holdings this week coupled with the injection of $1 billion in financing from its controlling shareholder and chief executive, Edward Lampert, helped shares climb off recent lows and reassured suppliers, who had grown increasingly uneasy over the retailer’s prospects.

A Republican proposal aimed at cutting tax rates and keeping jobs in the U.S. risks hitting the earnings of big U.S. retailers by driving up the cost of imported clothes, furniture and other goods, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Among the companies whose earnings are calculated to take a hit under the so-called border-adjusted tax proposal are Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Costco Wholesale Corp., Genuine Parts Co. and Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc., analysts said. The earnings hit to six big retailers could total nearly $13 billion, according to RBC Capital Markets analyst Scot Ciccarelli, with Best Buy Co.’s annual earnings wiped out. To offset their higher tax bills, retailers would need to increase revenue by raising prices for consumers, he said.

Surging online orders and last-minute shoppers helped retailers make up for a slow start to the holiday-shopping season, fueling hopes that higher wages, the rising stock market, and lower food and gas prices prompted Americans to spend more, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Estimates from retail research firms suggest sales growth in the period — which spans from Nov. 1 to the end of December — could outpace that of recent years. Customer Growth Partners, a New Canaan, Conn.-based research firm, raised its holiday-sales growth forecast to 4.9 percent from an initial estimate of 4.1 percent growth. That pace, according to the firm, would be the fastest growth rate since a 6.1 percent increase in 2005. Customer Growth Partners’ forecasts — which excludes auto, car parts, fuel and restaurant sales — are based on a weekly in-house survey of retailers across the country combined with broader economic indicators and historical data.

Executives at Bruegger’s Bagels are urging a bankruptcy judge to let them take over its largest franchise, a chain of 28 locations in upstate New York, and to reject a purchase offer from a lender that it says lacks experience in the breakfast food industry, the Wall Street Journal reported today. In court papers, Bruegger’s Bagels officials asked Judge Paul Warren to approve its $1.95 million offer for the franchised chain, whose locations from Albany to Rochester, N.Y., serve about 40,000 bagels a day. Financial professionals who put the chain into bankruptcy on March 2 said it was poorly managed by prior leaders in earlier documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Rochester. They have looked for buyers to take over its Fairport, N.Y.,-based operations. Under its offer, Bruegger’s Bagels officials agreed to spend about $2 million on store renovations and pay some of the chain’s $4.5 million debt to Bridge Funding Group Inc. They also argued that a competing purchase offer involving the chain’s lender, Canal Mezzanine Partners II LP, would put the locations’ financial health at risk.

Startup yoga clothing company Yoga Smoga Inc., founded by a pair of siblings who left Wall Street banks to begin the company, landed in chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday amid a dispute with its largest investor, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The New York-based company was billed as a challenger in the premium yoga market and drew comparisons with yoga-clothing giant Lululemon Athletica Inc. It aimed to set itself apart as the authentic brand in a market saturated with flashy spandex pants. The chapter 11 filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan follows an involuntary chapter 7 bankruptcy petition submitted to the court in November. Three creditors that claimed to be owed $3.2 million submitted the involuntary petition. The creditors include Durga Capital LLC and the Ravi Singh 2015 Family Trust, both of which are associated with Ravi Singh, former chairman of Yoga Smoga’s board.

American Apparel LLC will close nine of its stores, including locations in New York and Washington, D.C., by Dec. 31 and won approval of an agreement with liquidators that would govern the closure of any stores that aren’t sold during an auction in January, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The approval on Monday by Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon means that American Apparel can begin using the notorious yellow “going out of business” signage at these nine stores, which include locations in Georgetown and Tribeca, during the next two weeks. Although the company hasn’t yet begun the aggressive liquidation promotions at these stores, it has been running sales since earlier in December, it said in court documents. Liquidation sales at these stores are likely to generate $600,000 in income for American Apparel, and their closures will save $200,000 a month in rent, it said.