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Authentic Brands Group LLC, the owner of businesses such as Brooks Brothers and Forever 21, agreed to buy the heritage brands unit of PVH Corp. in a $220 million deal, Bloomberg News reported. The cash transaction includes brands such as Izod, Geoffrey Beene and PVH’s namesake Van Heusen, the companies said Wednesday in a statement. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of PVH’s current fiscal year. PVH will retain brands such as Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein. New York-based Authentic has made a name for itself buying well-known consumer brands, often through bankruptcy sales, and revitalizing the intellectual property, online presence and brick-and-mortar portfolio. Among the company’s familiar brand names are Nautica, Forever 21, Aeropostale, Brooks Brothers and Barneys New York. Since last year, Authentic Chief Executive Officer Jamie Salter has added new names including Eddie Bauer and Lucky Brand to its family of more than 30 apparel, celebrity and sports brands. Its recent growth has Authentic considering an initial public offering. Last July, PVH said it would close its 162 heritage-brand outlet stores, which it said at the time were expected to operate through mid-2021. It said the decision was accelerated by Covid-19. Read more. 

Learn more about the interplay between bankruptcy and intellectual property with Choppy Waters: Navigating the Intersection of Bankruptcy and Intellectual Property, available for purchase here. 

Bankruptcy Judge Benjamin Kahn has confirmed K&W Cafeteria Inc.’s chapter 11 reorganization plan, which calls for keeping 14 stores open while paying off largest creditor Truist Financial Corp. by July 1, 2022, the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal reported. K&W, a Winston-Salem-based staple of Southern comfort foods for 84 years, filed for Chapter 11 protection on Sept. 2 as the latest step in a corporate downsizing that began before the COVID-19 pandemic. K&W submitted its reorganization plan on March 31. Judge Kahn. approved the plan on Tuesday. K&W had 18 restaurants open at the time of the bankruptcy filing, including three in Winston-Salem and 14 in North Carolina. It now has 14 locations, including those on Healy Drive and on Hanes Mill Road in Winston-Salem. It has closed the South Park location off Peters Creek Parkway. K&W said it had 1,035 employees when it entered bankruptcy, but was down to 834 employees as of the Dec. 23 filing.

Krispy Kreme Inc. is targeting a valuation of nearly $4 billion in a U.S. initial public offering, according to a regulatory filing on Tuesday, as the donut chain aims a return to the stock market to capitalize on the record capital markets activity, Reuters reported. Known for its iconic glazed donuts, the company plans to sell about 26.7 million shares priced between $21 and $24 per share, the filing showed. At the upper end of the price range, it would raise about $640 million. Krispy Kreme's listing plans come at a time when the U.S. IPO market is witnessing unprecedented levels of activity, with companies having already raised around $171 billion, according to data from Dealogic, scorching past last year's record of $168 billion. The donut seller had confidentially filed with regulators in early May, which revealed a surge in revenue in the first quarter of 2021, driven by rising demand for sugary snacks during the pandemic. Krispy Kreme opened its first store in North Carolina in 1937 when it started selling doughnuts in local grocery stores. It first went public in 2000 but its unit had to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2005. It sold 1.3 billion donuts across 30 countries in fiscal 2020, capping the highest level of sales in the brand's history, with net revenues of $1.1 billion.

Hertz Corp. is tapping the asset-backed securities market this week with its first full-term rental-car securitization since November 2019, part of its emergence from chapter 11 protection, Bloomberg News reported. Proceeds from its inaugural post-bankruptcy ABS will be used to finance the purchase of new vehicles to be leased to Hertz under a so-called master lease agreement. It will also be used to refinance both its original pre-bankruptcy legacy fleet-financing facility, as well as a $4 billion interim facility established last November with Athene USA Corp., an affiliate of Apollo Capital Management Inc., as a stepping stone toward an ABS transaction. The total $2.2 billion offering, composed of two bond series, is expected to meet strong demand from investors who have a renewed confidence in the rental-car sector as travel picks up post-pandemic. The deal will likely satisfy yield-hungry investors, market observers say, as risk premiums at price talk are relatively wide compared to other recent rental-car ABS from issuers such as Avis Budget Group Inc.

Companies in certain industries received more auditor warnings about their ability to stay afloat over the past year, compared with the previous period, as the coronavirus pandemic put finance chiefs and balance sheets under pressure, the Wall Street Journal reported. These warnings, also called going-concern opinions, are published in the annual reports of public companies and refer to their likelihood to remain in business for the next 12 months. Executives in the spring of 2020 rushed to preserve liquidity, often by slashing jobs, cutting costs, and halting dividends and share repurchases. Some industries — such as e-commerce, technology and food retail — managed to navigate lockdown orders and restrictions, while others, including airlines and oil companies, suffered big losses. Recurring losses, alongside issues such as negative cash flow and inability to pay suppliers, usually trigger going-concern opinions. Rental-car company Hertz Global Holdings Inc., restaurant and entertainment firm Dave & Buster’s Entertainment Inc. and cruise operator Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. were among the companies that issued such notices last year. Hertz filed for bankruptcy about two weeks after disclosing a warning, but Dave & Buster’s and Norwegian didn’t. Truck startup Lordstown Motors Corp. earlier this month said it might not have enough cash to start production, which triggered a management reshuffle. Even though going-concern filings at U.S. public companies overall declined during the 12 months ended May 31, they rose in certain industries, such as real estate and transportation.

As the national economy recovers from the pandemic and begins to take off, New York City is lagging, with changing patterns of work and travel threatening the engines that have long powered its jobs and prosperity, the New York Times reported. New York has suffered deeper job losses as a share of its work force than any other big American city. And while the country has regained two-thirds of the positions it lost after the coronavirus arrived, New York has recouped fewer than half, leaving a deficit of more than 500,000 jobs. New York City lost the greatest share of jobs among the 20 largest U.S. cities. The city had an 11.8 percent decline in jobs from February 2020 to April 2021, almost three times the loss on the national level.

Retail sales fell in May, dragged down by a decline in auto sales and a shift by Americans to spend more on vacations and other services instead of goods, the Associated Press reported. Total sales dropped a seasonally adjusted 1.3% in May from the month before, the U.S. Commerce Department said yesterday. Wall Street analysts expected a smaller decline of 0.5%. Economists predicted retail sales to drop in May because of the lack of cars available for sale due to a worldwide shortage of chips, which are needed to power in-car screens and other features. Sales at auto dealerships fell 3.7% last month, the government said. Another reason for the decrease: As more Americans are vaccinated and want to head out more, they are spending more of their money on haircuts, trips and other services that are not included in Tuesday’s report. Last month, sales fell at furniture, electronics and home building stores. “Consumer spending growth through the rest of the year will shift to services from goods,” wrote PNC chief economist Gus Faucher in a research note. That switch will also likely help reduce the supply shortages that have plagued some parts of the economy and pushed up inflation. There are signs this is already happening: With car prices rising, auto sales have slowed. Vehicle sales soared in the pandemic, which means fewer people need new cars. And according to a separate government report Tuesday, automakers ramped up production in May, after it fell in two of the previous three months. Read more. 

In related news, wholesale prices, driven by rising food costs, increased 0.8% in May and by an unprecedented amount over the past year as the U.S. economy emerges from pandemic lockdowns and pushes inflation higher, the Associated Press reported. The monthly gain in the producer price index, which measures inflation pressure before it reaches consumers, followed a 0.6% increase in April and a 1% jump in March, the Labor Department reported yesterday. Food prices jumped a sizable 2.6% with the cost of beef and veal rising, though the cost of fresh fruits declined. Energy costs rose 2.2%, reversing a 2.4% drop in April. Over the past 12 months, wholesale prices are up 6.6%, the largest 12-month increase on records going back to 2010. Read more.