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Zumobi Inc. filed for bankruptcy with plans to sell its business for $750,000 to ESW Capital LLC, with the venture-backed business saying that it is facing headwinds in an advertising-technology industry consolidated around big players like Google and Facebook Inc., WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The company, which raised more than $40 million in financing over the years from backers that include majority shareholder Oak Investment Partners, has cut its workforce to four staffers. In 2015 it had 30 employees. Zumobi sought protection from creditors on Friday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., with a proposed agreement to sell its business to ESW, which invests in business software companies. The company began looking for a buyer last year. It contacted more than 70 potential strategic and financial buyers. ESW alone made an offer and in August submitted a letter of intent to acquire the business, Zumobi Chief Executive Ken Willner said in a court filing. The proposed purchase offer consists of $750,000 in cash, plus up to $150,000 in other potential consideration. Zumobi, with about $61,000 in assets, has about $13.3 million in liabilities, most of which is owed to Oak Investment in the form of an unsecured bond and related interest, the chapter 11 petition shows.

Frontier Communications Corp. should file for bankruptcy sooner rather than later to get ahead of deterioration of the business and “cracks” in U.S. credit markets, according to Robert Citrone’s hedge fund, Bloomberg News reported. Further delays as the telecom company tries to organize creditors will erode cash and confidence in the business, Discovery Capital Management LLC said in an Oct. 24 letter to Frontier’s board that was reviewed by Bloomberg. Financial markets are pricing in a 99 percent chance that Frontier will file for bankruptcy over the next two years, according to the letter, which was signed by portfolio manager Douglas Ormond and copied to Citrone, founder of the investment firm. Frontier faces dwindling liquidity as “cracks begin to appear in the U.S. credit markets,” and could be in danger of violating terms of its debt, Discovery wrote. The firm represents longtime investors in Frontier.

Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting, the founder of an electric-vehicle startup and an internet streaming service, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S., seeking protection from banks and other creditors that are owed as much as $3.6 billion, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. A major investor in car maker Faraday & Future Inc., Jia filed for bankruptcy yesterday with a plan to set up a creditor trust and relinquish his equity in Faraday owner Smart King Ltd. to help repay his debts. In 2017, Faraday had to give up a $335 million incentive package it was on track to receive from Nevada to build a $1 billion factory in North Las Vegas. The plan fell apart after Chinese courts froze the assets of Jia, also the founder of Chinese technology business LeEco Holdings. Most of his debts currently stem from his personal guarantees or money he borrowed personally on behalf of companies that he founded or led. He has about $1 billion in assets, according to a filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. Jia will no longer hold his equity interest in Smart King, under a proposed chapter 11 restructuring plan, but he said he plans to continue to work with the company. Under certain conditions, he also may get representation on the creditor trust committee, according to a nonbinding creditor trust term sheet filed with the court. The plan also includes a management incentive equity plan for Smart King under which he may participate.

GTT Communications Inc.’s debt is trading at distressed levels after a string of earnings misses and the resignation of its chief financial officer triggered a selloff, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The McLean, Va.-based telecommunications and internet service provider’s $575 million 7.875 percent unsecured bonds due 2024 hit an all-time low of 47.375 cents on the dollar Tuesday, down from 55 at the start of October and 75 in early August, according to MarketAxess. GTT’s $1.75 billion first-lien term loan is currently quoted at around 79 cents on the dollar, down from the high 80s level it had been trading at before the company’s August second-quarter earnings release, according to IHS Markit. GTT has been struggling since it acquired Interoute Communications Ltd., Europe’s largest cloud-services platform and the owner of a major fiber-optic cable network on the Continent, for $2.3 billion in cash in May of last year. Investors began selling off GTT’s stock and bonds after the company missed Wall Street consensus earnings estimates in its first-quarter 2019 results. The downward momentum accelerated in August following another earnings miss in the second quarter.

CEO Ted Livingston of Kik — the once-popular messaging app —  announced that the company is shutting down the Kik messaging application and focusing entirely on its Kin cryptocurrency, TheVerge.com reported. It’s an effort for the company to save money as it battles the Securities and Exchange Commission over whether its initial coin offering (ICO) should count as a security. The SEC alleges that the company was using the $100 million Kin ICO as a last bid “hail Mary” to try to turn things around after a decline in popularity. Livingston notes that in order to continue fighting the SEC, the company is taking three actions: shutting down Kik entirely, firing over 100 employees to reduce the company to “an elite 19 person team,” and focusing exclusively on “converting Kin users into Kin buyers.”

Telecommunications company Frontier Communications Corp. is telling bondholders that it will shortly present a detailed plan to slash its roughly $17 billion debt load, the Wall Street Journal reported. Frontier has signaled that it wants to start formal negotiations with a single group representing all bondholders. Many investors now expect the company to pursue a comprehensive debt restructuring, a decision that could put it on a path to a chapter 11 bankruptcy filing unless a fractious collection of bondholders can resolve their differences out of court. Whether or not Frontier seeks bankruptcy protection, the company’s pursuit of debt restructuring highlights the problems facing an expansion strategy that took the company from a minor regional player to one that now provides phone and internet service throughout more than half the country. Starting roughly a decade ago, the company embarked on a series of acquisitions, each of which proved difficult to implement. Meanwhile, debt piled up. And the company struggled to hold on to customers in the face of stiff competition from providers of faster internet services. Unusually for a bankruptcy candidate, Frontier still generates free cash flow. It also doesn’t face significant debt maturities until 2022. Still, its business has been shrinking, and there is widespread agreement that it needs to ease its debt burden so it can invest in its infrastructure and have a shot at thriving.

Frontier Communications Corp. on Monday was set to make roughly $320 million of debt payments, at least temporarily easing fears of a near-term bankruptcy filing for the wireline telecom company, the Wall Street Journal reported. Though not all investors owed interest payments had received them as of yesterday, Frontier bondholders said that they were informed by custodial banks that the cash was being transferred, ending weeks of speculation about whether the company would pay coupons on several bonds, including large issues due in 2022 and 2025. Given Frontier’s roughly $17 billion debt load and struggles to cope with cord-cutting customers, investors and analysts have long considered it possible that the company might end up in bankruptcy. Speculation, though, intensified in recent months after the company appointed restructuring experts to its board, said it wouldn’t take questions on its second-quarter earnings call and adopted a decidedly negative tone on that call compared with previous communications.

Global Cloud Xchange filed for bankruptcy protection Sunday after reaching a deal with lenders that will erase $150 million in debt and hands control of the telecommunications company to its senior bondholders, the Wall Street Journal reported. The company, a subsidiary of India’s Reliance Communications also known as GCX, said that more than 75 percent committed to back the debt-for-equity swap, which will be completed through a prepackaged chapter 11 plan in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. The chapter 11 filing comes after the company said it had struck a forbearance agreement in July with bondholders over the restructuring of $350 million in bonds issued by GCX Ltd.

Technology leaders are playing a bigger role in helping companies bounce back after a bankruptcy, the Wall Street Journal reported. Many are brought in as bankruptcy proceedings wind down and the company is going through a broader restructuring. Their tasks include forging information-technology strategies around cloud computing, data analytics and other advanced digital tools in order to cut costs and reignite productivity, senior IT executives and industry analysts say. Chief information officers at restructured companies looking to jumpstart growth are in “an incredible position to drive change,” said Chris Pick, founder of the Technology Business Management Council, a nonprofit trade group for enterprise IT managers. Pick, chief marketing officer at software maker Apptio Inc., said the spread of digital tools has enabled tech leaders to better track data and gain insights about customers and competitors. That allows them to ask “harder, smarter questions” about what needs to be done to breathe new life into a business, he added. CIOs are in a unique position to boost productivity, drive down costs, streamline operational efficiency and create new sources of revenue, industry analysts said. Since Caesars Entertainment Corp.’s largest operating unit emerged from bankruptcy in late 2017, the company has cut the number of internal software applications to 260 from more than 800, thanks to an effort to improve IT efficiency, said CIO Les Ottolenghi.