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About six months after opening its first store, Art Van successor Loves Furniture is filing for chapter 11 restructuring and liquidating 25 stores in hopes of surviving, WOODTV.com reported. In court documents filed Sunday, Loves interim CEO Mack Peters said Penske Logistics Services, the company’s warehouse manager, pulled its people and trucks from Loves’ warehouse in late January after the furniture retailer ran out of cash to pay Penske. Loves says Penske also refused to let Loves use its warehouse management system to find inventory in the 1-million-square-foot warehouse to fulfill customer orders. Penske took a step further on Jan. 6 by filing for a temporary restraining order against Loves to prevent the furniture retailer from moving or delivering items in its warehouse, according to the bankruptcy court filing. Loves says it canceled all customer orders that weren’t already pulled from the warehouse that the company leased directly.

Restaurant franchisee NPC International Inc. has settled all the major disputes that had threatened to hold up a plan to sell its Pizza Hut locations to Flynn Restaurant Group, lawyers told a federal bankruptcy judge on Friday, Bloomberg News reported. Pizza Hut attorney Charles Gibbs said during a video court hearing that the company expects to sign a consent agreement in the next few days with Flynn, allowing the restaurateur to close a deal to buy NPC’s operations of the chain. When NPC filed for bankruptcy last year, it operated more than 1,200 Pizza Hut locations and nearly 400 Wendy’s Co. restaurants. In November, NPC called off auctions for its Pizza Hut and Wendy’s restaurants because the offers were too low, an NPC lawyer said last month. Instead, the company entered settlement talks that ultimately led to the current deal. The agreement will see Flynn purchase the Pizza Hut locations, while a group of Wendy’s franchisees will buy the burger restaurants. Wendy’s has agreed to be the backup buyer for the burger locations in case the agreement with franchise holders falls through, a lawyer for the fast-food chain said during the hearing.

Houston-based specialty apparel retailer Francesca's Holding Corp. is one step closer to selling its business to a private investor, the Houston Business Journal reported. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware has approved the company's auction process, Francesca's announced Jan. 8. Bids are due by 4 p.m. Eastern Time on Jan. 13, and the auction is set for 10 a.m. Eastern Time on Jan. 15. The auction will only be held if Francesca's receives one or more qualified bids. If not, Francesca's will seek the bankruptcy court's approval of its stalking-horse asset purchase agreement. Francesca's also announced Jan. 8 that it formalized the stalking-horse agreement with an affiliate of Los Angeles-based TerraMar Capital LLC and with New York-based Tiger Capital Group LLC. The buyers have agreed to purchase substantially all of the assets of Francesca's and its subsidiaries for approximately $17 million in cash, subject to certain adjustments, plus the assumption of substantial liabilities. Francesca's filed for chapter 11 protection on Dec. 3 with plans to sell itself. At the time, Francesca's and TerraMar had signed a letter of intent regarding a stalking-horse bidder agreement, and the retailer said that it wanted to hold an auction as expeditiously as possible.

Cyc Holdings LLC, which had hoped to salvage its spin-class business through a chapter 11 reorganization, has switched instead to a chapter 7 liquidation, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The operator of Cycle House, Zengo Fitness and Cyc Fitness centers had entered bankruptcy in October with roughly eight locations in Washington D.C., New York and California, and planned to reduce the number of studios to three or four during its bankruptcy. But last month the company said that a feasible reorganization was looking increasingly unlikely as the coronavirus pandemic continued to severely curtail its business. To buy itself time, Cyc said it wanted to dismiss the bankruptcy, saying chapter 11 proceedings were costly and that a conversion to chapter 7 would be a “death knell.” Cyc said a dismissal was preferable, as it would allow the company to determine whether salvaging the business was possible. The company entered bankruptcy with about $1.8 million in debt, according to a court filing. Heading into a virtual hearing Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., a landlord objected to the bankruptcy being dismissed, instead preferring chapter 7 as one of the options. Cyc said at the hearing that its prospects had worsened due to a rise in COVID-19 cases in the wake of the holidays, along with worries about a new coronavirus variant. According to statements made in court, the company’s sole remaining employee is President Marc Caputo.

NPC International Inc., the bankrupt Wendy’s and Pizza Hut franchisee, agreed to sell its restaurants in separate deals worth roughly $800 million involving Flynn Restaurant Group LLC and Wendy’s International LLC, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. NPC, the nation’s largest franchisee of Pizza Hut and Wendy’s restaurants, said yesterday that Flynn will acquire all of its more than 925 Pizza Hut locations, along with roughly half of its nearly 400 Wendy’s sites and substantially all of its shared-service assets. Wendy’s International, meanwhile, will acquire over 190 of NPC’s Wendy’s locations and assign the right to buy the restaurants to five current franchisees, court filings show. Flynn would take over NPC’s Pizza Hut restaurants as well as Wendy’s units in Salt Lake City and parts of Maryland for roughly $553 million. Wendy’s International, along with certain of its franchisees, agreed to acquire Wendy’s restaurants in Pennsylvania; Kansas City, Mo.; Greensboro, N.C.; and Raleigh, N.C., for roughly $248 million, court filings show.

Loves Furniture Inc., the upstart furniture retailer that acquired more than two dozen Art Van stores out of bankruptcy only eight months ago, filed for chapter 11 protection in Detroit on Wednesday, Crain's Detroit Business reported. The reorganization comes only weeks after the Warren, Mich.-based retailer began liquidating 10 stores across Michigan. The retailer has been plagued with financial troubles since acquiring assets and leases of 27 total Art Van stores out of U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware for $6.9 million in May last year. The liquidation effort led by CEO Mack Peters, who was hired last month, quickly failed as debt continued to mount and poor performance dragged down the brand. Peters told Crain's in December that Loves was struggling with supply chain issues and couldn't continue servicing the company's stable of stores. Loves already turned over all five of its Pennsylvania stores to new owners as well as its Westland and Ann Arbor stores to competitors. The closure of more stores was then being discussed, Peters said.

The Allegheny County Health Department case against a Brentwood, Pa., restaurant that flouted COVID-19 restrictions and was ordered to close will proceed after a federal bankruptcy judge denied the business’ request to stop the closure, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. The Crack’d Egg restaurant, owned by Kimberly Waigand, filed for chapter 11 protection in October after the health department ordered it to close. The restaurant owners tried to move the closure case into the bankruptcy proceedings. Because the shutdown is related to the federal case, the owners argued, the outcome could affect the bankruptcy and should be heard by the federal court. But the law cited by the restaurant has an exception for actions by government regulatory powers, such as the health department, that prevents them from moving the case, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Jeffery A. Deller wrote. The judge sent the case back to Allegheny County Common Pleas Court, where it is set to be heard by Judge John T. McVay.

AMC Entertainment Inc. is in talks with Apollo Global Management Inc. and other top creditors over a potential financing deal backed by the cinema chain’s European assets, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. AMC, the world’s largest movie theater company, is negotiating with lenders including Apollo, Davidson Kempner Capital Management LP, and Ares Management Corp. to expand the line of credit available to the company’s U.K.-based Odeon Cinemas Group subsidiary. The company, which since October has warned of a possible bankruptcy filing as pandemic restrictions shut down theaters world-wide, has also held talks with other creditor groups and potential outside investors, the people said. AMC acquired Odeon, the largest cinema operator in Europe, in 2016. The subsidiary has a 100 million-pound revolving credit facility, worth approximately $135 million, which was fully drawn as of September. Discussions have centered on upsizing the credit facility by roughly £300 million, though the amount and structure of a potential deal are still under negotiation. AMC has been hard hit by the pandemic, which temporarily shut the doors of most of its theaters. Major Hollywood studios have either delayed releasing films or released them straight to streaming services, leaving cinemas with little content to show those viewers willing to brave a trip to the big screen.

The owner of New York Sports Clubs and Lucille Roberts is seeking fresh equity capital to stave off a cash crunch less than two months after buying the gym chains out of bankruptcy, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The investor-backed acquisition vehicle that bought the fitness chains is soliciting investors for a $2 million equity raise to improve liquidity and fund working capital needs, giving a Wednesday deadline for potential participants to indicate interest. The chains were sold out of bankruptcy in November to Peak Credit LLC, an affiliate of New York-based investment banking firm Lepercq de Neuflize & Co., as well as a number of lenders to the chains’ former owner, Town Sports International LLC. Following Town Sports’ September bankruptcy filing, private-equity firm Tacit Capital LLC had proposed serving as the stalking-horse bidder to acquire the company’s assets. Tacit backed out when it failed to come up with the $47.5 million it had pledged to post to fund operations once the bankruptcy sale closed, according to court records. Peak stepped in for Tacit with a $5 million funding commitment to capitalize an acquisition vehicle called New TSI Holdings Inc. that would own and operate the chains, according to court documents.