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Former telecommunications equipment company Nortel Networks Ltd. reached an agreement with their various business units yesterday to divvy up the $7.3 billion raised from liquidating the failed company, paving the way for pensioners and creditors to get paid after a seven-year wait, Reuters reported. Ontario-based Nortel stumbled from ranking among the world's most valuable companies during the 1990s Internet bubble to bankruptcy in 2009 and liquidation. The cash at the center of the dispute was raised from the sale of Nortel's global businesses, including patents sold in 2011 for $4.5 billion to a group of technology firms led by Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Sony Corp.  Under the agreement, Nortel's former U.S. business unit would receive 24 percent or $1.8 billion of the cash, with Nortel estates in Canada and Europe receiving 57 percent and 18 percent respectively, the former company said in a court filing.

An investor in Jumio Inc. sued Facebook Inc. co-founder Eduardo Saverin and other directors of the mobile-payment company accusing them of mismanaging the startup and duping shareholders about its prospects, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Bad management drove the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company into bankruptcy after it was forced in 2015 to restate two years’ worth of earnings, shareholder Bloso Investments Ltd. said in the complaint filed in Delaware Chancery Court. Saverin, who became a billionaire through Facebook’s initial public offering, extolled Jumio in 2012 as growing faster in its infancy than the social-media network he helped create in 2004, and predicted the company would be highly profitable. Saverin’s statements and ones made by other directors misled Bloso officials about Jumio’s operations and duped them into investing $5 million in the company, according to the lawsuit filed Sept. 29.

Warring national units of defunct Nortel Networks Corp. have failed to reach a deal on how to divide $7.3 billion raised in the bankruptcy liquidation of the company, a fallen icon of the Canadian technology scene, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The money has been tied up for years in court fights, which are set to continue in a federal appeals court in Philadelphia. Talks continue, according to a letter filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, but efforts to settle the litigation have so far not panned out. Nortel U.S. is preparing once again to go to court against the Canadian parent company and European creditors, chiefly British pensioners, according to the letter, filed on Friday by one of Nortel U.S.’s lawyers Derek Abbott. The federal appeals court in the U.S. is being asked to overturn a bankruptcy judge’s decision on dividing the money on the grounds it is outside the bounds of the law. Nortel’s U.S. lawyers on Friday set out a schedule of briefing on the appeal, but left the dates blank, saying that they would like to take another month to try to reach agreement and end the litigation.

Delivery Agent, a company that helps entertainment and sports operations sell products online, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Thursday, after hopes of an initial public offering of stock fell through, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Hillair Capital Investments L.P., which stepped up with rescue financing late last year, is set to lead a bankruptcy auction for the business. Hopes are that the chapter 11 filing will spur interest in Delivery Agent, allowing a sale free and clear of the more than $65 million in unsecured debt weighing on the company’s balance sheet. The idea behind the San Francisco-based company is to help TV, music and other entertainment companies sell products to consumers, through online technology. Delivery Agent is connected to hundreds of digital commerce storefronts, offering thousands of products relating to TV shows, movies, music, sports and artists. Besides its proprietary e-commerce technology platform, the company provides in-house services including website operations, product design, development, merchandising, order fulfillment, and customer service.

A settlement could be reached within a month in one of the longest running and most expensive bankruptcies on record, a lawyer for Nortel Networks Corp.’s U.S. unit told an appeals court yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Nortel U.S. has been battling Canadian parent Nortel and British pensioners over how to divide $7.3 billion raised in the bankruptcy liquidation of the onetime telecommunications giant. A settlement would break an impasse that has lasted more than five years. Speaking at a hearing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, James Bromley, lawyer for Nortel U.S., said that the Nortel combatants will know by Oct. 7 whether the latest in a long series of mediation efforts will produce a deal. “We don’t have resolution yet,” Bromley said. If there is no settlement by Oct. 7, Nortel Canada, Nortel U.S. and European creditors will continue the court fights that have, over the years, pushed the professional fee totals to the $2 billion mark.

Brazil's largest fixed line carrier Oi SA on Monday unveiled a debt restructuring proposal, offering to sell assets and proposing a debt-for-equity swap option that could mean a 70 percent haircut for bondholders, Reuters reported today. Oi filed for protection from creditors on June 20 in the country's biggest-ever bankruptcy case, involving 65.4 billion reais ($19.3 billion) in bonds, bank debt and operating liabilities. In a securities filing yesterday, Oi offered four payment options to unsecured creditors such as bondholders owed approximately 34 billion reais. At the same time, the company said it is willing to repay secured creditors such as the Brazil's BNDES development bank in full over the course of 15 years. Brazil's Oi offered to exchange up to 32.3 billion reais ($9.90 billion) in unsecured debt for equity under the plan, which would give lenders up to 85 percent of the company's capital, according to the filings.

A group of Avaya Inc. creditors led by Franklin Resources Inc. has approached other senior lenders, including Apollo Global Management LLC and Blackstone Group LP, about jointly negotiating a $6 billion debt restructuring, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Franklin held initial talks with Apollo and Blackstone Group’s credit arm GSO Capital Partners, which lead the first-lien debt holders, over pushing the struggling software and services provider to restructure its balance sheet. Teaming up would make it easier to reach an agreement among investors and result in a more focused effort when dealing with the company, said one of the people. The talks came after the first-lien holders started urging Avaya, controlled by TPG Capital Management and Silver Lake Management, to cut debt in half because the interest burden has become unsustainable. The two private-equity firms acquired the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company in a 2007 leveraged buyout. Avaya has a $73 million interest payment due Sept. 1 on its $1.38 billion of 10.5 percent second-lien bonds due in 2021. Franklin held about a third of those securities at the end of June, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Franklin group’s holdings also overlap with GSO and Apollo in some of the first-lien debt.

Oi SA is sticking to its year-end goals of tripling subscribers who use multiple services and boosting investments by 25 percent even as the phone carrier works through Brazil’s biggest-ever bankruptcy, Chief Executive Officer Marco Schroeder said, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The company is current in payments to suppliers and aims to continue on that front to guarantee service to customers during the bankruptcy process, Schroeder said. In March, Oi offered a package of mobile, landline, broadband and pay-TV services for customers across the country. Oi Total had 320,000 subscribers as of June and aims to reach 1 million this year, the company said. Oi filed for bankruptcy protection in June after failing to reach a restructuring agreement with creditors covering 65.4 billion reais ($20 billion) of debt. As it stops servicing its debt, Oi will have more cash to invest in its business, Schroeder said. 

Alvarez & Marsal, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte & Touche are pursuing a mandate to administer the bankruptcy protection process for Brazilian telecommunications group Oi SA, Reuters reported on Friday. Oi filed last month for court protection from creditors on 65.4 billion real ($19.9 billion) of bonds, bank debt and operating liabilities, Brazil's biggest filing ever of its kind. The judge in charge of the case has asked telecom watchdog Anatel to propose candidates for the role, and on Friday the regulator extended the deadline for applications to July 11. The Oi saga took another twist on Friday when a minority investor called for the replacement of most of its board, underscoring deep divisions among major shareholders that derailed recent negotiations with creditors. Alvarez & Marsal submitted a formal bid with Anatel on Friday and received confirmation from the regulator that the bid was received. The timing of the Price and Deloitte bids is unclear.

A Brazilian court yesterday accepted Oi SA's bankruptcy protection petition, allowing the country's largest phone company to move ahead with plans to reorganize operations and restructure 65.4 billion reais ($20.2 billion) of debt, Reuters reported. The decision was made by judge Fernando Viana of the 7th Commercial Branch of Rio de Janeiro's Justice Tribunal who will supervise the reorganization on behalf of Oi and creditors, the court said in a statement. Viana said that he accepted the petition because of the company's importance to the Brazilian economy, to ensure an organized restructuring of Oi's debts and to protect its suppliers, 70 million clients, 140,000 employees and taxes Oi pays to the Brazilian government, the statement said.