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Fisker Automotive Inc. went up for auction yesterday, with Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li dueling China's Wanxiang Group for the assets of the failed luxury hybrid vehicle maker, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. No other bidders qualified by a Friday deadline, court papers say, so that the field is left to the two contenders that have been jousting over Fisker for weeks. Results of the auction will be reviewed at a hearing Friday in bankruptcy court.

Two retailers in Southern California have reached a $55 million deal to buy Phoenix-based Pro's Ranch Markets, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last May, the Associated Press reported yesterday. The family-owned chain of grocery stores popular with Latino customers was founded 31 years ago and has seven stores in Arizona and two each in New Mexico and Texas. Cardenas Northgate Group Ranch announced yesterday that as part of the deal, it will also get Pro's Ranch Markets' corporate office and a 151,000-square-foot warehouse in Phoenix. CNG Ranch officials say all 11 Pro's Ranch Market stores will remain open for the foreseeable future. Cardenas Markets currently owns 26 stores in California and three in Nevada while Northgate Gonzalez Markets operates 38 California locations.

Constar International Holdings LLC, a maker of plastic soda bottles, won bankruptcy court approval of three asset sales totaling about $113.6 million, including a sale of the majority of its assets to Plastipak Packaging Inc. for about $102.5 million, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi yesterday granted the company permission to sell its U.S. and U.K. assets including real estate in Havre De Grace, Md., to the winners of a bankruptcy auction held last week. In 29 rounds of bidding, the sale price for the U.S. assets rose about $34 million, or almost 50 percent, from Amcor Rigid Plastics USA Inc.’s initial bid of $68.5 million.

First Mariner Bancorp, the holding company for Maryland community bank 1st Mariner, plans to file for chapter 11 protection in order to sell the bank, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The company has an offer that would provide $100 million of new capital from a group of private-equity investors — Priam Capital, Patriot Financial Partners, GCP Capital Partners and TFO Financial Institutions Restructuring Fund LLC — and investors from the Baltimore business community. The offer will be tested at auction. First Mariner said that it would ask the bankruptcy court to approve the auction rules quickly but didn’t say exactly when it plans to file for bankruptcy. First Mariner had become undercapitalized, it said in recent financial disclosures, and wasn’t in compliance with Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Federal Reserve Board of Richmond capital requirements.

A unit of Cerberus Capital Management is poised to acquire the operator of the Fox & Hound and Champps restaurant and sports bar chains out of bankruptcy protection in a deal valued at more than $120 million, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Cerberus Business Finance, a unit of the New York private equity firm, would pay $14.5 million in cash, forgive $19 million of the debt it is owed as the company's lender and take responsibility for another $86 million of the company's debt in exchange for most of the company's assets, according to court papers filed Friday.

Bankruptcy Judge Peter Walsh on Tuesday approved Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings' $10.5 million offer as the lead bid at the bankruptcy auction of several Indiana-based assets of fellow clinical lab operator MedLab, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Judge Walsh also extended MedLab's exclusive control over the sale of its assets through April 23, according to court papers. The company's exclusivity period was set to expire Feb. 24. A successful sale would raise money to help pay off some of MedLab's $42 million debt. In court papers, the company said it owes about $21.6 million for a loan arranged by an affiliate of Marathon Asset Management, which has also agreed to extend a $5 million bankruptcy loan to cover some of the company's bankruptcy expenses.

Archetypes, a startup that flew under the radar of the New York tech scene, burned through more than $19 million in just two years on a website that never launched out of beta, CNNMoney.com reported yesterday. Archetypes raised debt from its executive chairman, Philosophy cosmetics founder Cristina Carlino, but it was not enough to stay in business. In November, the company filed for chapter 11 protection with between $10 million and $50 million in liabilities owed to between 50 and 99 debtors. On Jan. 16, Archetypes emerged from bankruptcy thanks to Carlino, who already owned 49.5 percent of the company. Archetypes was acquired by CC Bridge Lender, the vehicle which Carlino used to provide debt.

With a bankruptcy auction already in the works, Dots LLC has "several" potential buyers interested in running the women's clothing retailer as a continuing business, according to Kenneth Rosen, a lawyer for the ailing chain, the Wall Street Journal reported today. "Several of the potential suitors are looking at Dots as a going concern — which is what the company wants to see," Mr. Rosen, of Lowenstein Sandler LLP, said yesterday. Court papers say that there is no committed opening bid yet, and hence no guarantee that Dots won't fall into the hands of liquidators at a planned Feb. 28 auction. However, interest among bidders in keeping Dots alive means hope for the 400-store chain of discount-clothing outlets and its 3,500 employees. Dots filed for chapter 11 protection Jan. 20 and signed up $36 million worth of financing from existing lender Salus Capital Partners LLC.

Two families that own major Hispanic-oriented grocery store chains throughout the Southwest got approval from a federal judge Tuesday to purchase the struggling Pro's Ranch Market chain's 11 stores out of bankruptcy, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. After reviewing the purchase offer at a court hearing, Bankruptcy Judge Sarah Sharer Curley said that she would approve it, according to Pro's Ranch Market attorney Frederick Petersen. The buyers' offer is worth about $53.6 million, according to court documents.

Philip Falcone’s LightSquared Inc., seeking to reorganize in bankruptcy, received loan offers from a fund owned by Fortress Investment Group LLC and an entity linked to the wireless-network company’s one-time suitor, Dish Network Corp. Chairman Charlie Ergen, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The loan proposals are superior to one from a group of LightSquared’s lenders, Fortress Credit Investments and Ergen’s SP Special Opportunities LLC said in papers filed on Jan. 24. Their arguments are to be considered at a Jan. 31 hearing.