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Ecotality Inc., the maker of Blink electric-vehicle-charging stations, has received a $3 million purchase offer to kick off the upcoming bankruptcy auction for its business, Dow Jones Newswires reported yesterday. In court papers, officials at Ecotality, which obtained a $100 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, said that interested buyers will have to beat the initial offer from a company called Tellus Power Inc. if they want to take ownership of the San Francisco company. The company's auction is scheduled for tomorrow, though some of the company's creditors have asked Bankruptcy Judge Randolph Haines to push back the date. A delay could give challengers more time to evaluate Tellus Power's bid, which was unveiled on Saturday, attorneys for the company's unsecured creditors' committee said in court papers. The winning bidder's offer is set to be reviewed by Judge Haines at an Oct. 9 hearing.

British retailer Tesco PLC's U.S. grocery chain, Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, is pushing for a sale by Thanksgiving, probably to Yucaipa Cos., the investing company that helped fund Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co.'s exit from bankruptcy, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Yucaipa was chosen to lead the bidding on the grocery chain after a nine-month marketing process in advance of Monday's bankruptcy filing.

LightSquared Inc., Philip Falcone’s bankrupt wireless spectrum company, resolved a dispute with lenders on bidding procedures that the company had said could have foiled a $2 billion offer for its assets, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The auction procedures will be submitted for formal court approval, Matthew S. Barr, an attorney for LightSquared, told Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman yesterday. Under the agreement, an independent committee will oversee the auction. The lenders, who hold $1.4 billion of $1.7 billion in debt of LightSquared’s LP unit, had objected to a plan that it said would have given Falcone’s investment company, Harbinger Capital Partners LLC, too much power to choose the winning bid. The group said Harbinger opposed any sale of LightSquared assets.

Comcast Corp. is prepared to bid if it can force a sale of the financially troubled, regional-sports network that carries the games of the Houston Astros baseball team and the Houston Rockets, the city's basketball team, court papers show, Reuters reported yesterday. Affiliates of Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, on Friday filed for involuntary bankruptcy against Houston Regional Sports Network LP, and said in court papers that the network should be put up for sale for the benefit of creditors. Comcast "believes the network's assets have meaningful value, and would be prepared to make a bid to acquire either the network (under a plan of reorganization) or substantially all of its assets," the media conglomerate said in court documents. The network's three-member board consists of representatives of Comcast, the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association and the Houston Astros of Major League Baseball, according to documents filed by a Comcast affiliate. The network has been locked in a dispute with cable and satellite television providers over how much it should receive per subscriber, which has limited the network's reach.

Personal Communications Devices LLC won bankruptcy-court approval to head to the auction block next month, where Quality One Wireless LLC will start the bidding at $105.3 million, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Under the auction rules that Bankruptcy Judge Alan Trust approved on Monday, rival bids for Personal Communications' business will be due Oct. 8, followed by an Oct. 9 auction.

NE Opco Inc., the largest closely held envelope-maker in North America, won court approval to sell virtually all of its assets to three separate buyers for a total of about $70 million, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi granted the company, which does business as National Envelope, permission to sell its envelope business to Cenveo Inc. for about $33 million. Cenveo, based in Stamford, Conn., will pay $25 million in cash and $5 million in stock, according to Perry Mandarino, NE Opco’s financial adviser. Cenveo will also take over a portion of the bankruptcy financing.

A potential bidding war between two buyout firms is brewing over Furniture Brands International Inc., which filed for chapter 11 earlier this week with a plan to sell most of its assets to Oaktree Capital Management, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. KPS Capital Partners, a New York private-equity firm that focuses on turning around troubled manufacturers, emerged yesterday at a bankruptcy court hearing as a possible rival bidder for the St. Louis-based furniture maker.

Philip Falcone’s LightSquared Inc. shouldn’t be allowed to run its own bankruptcy auction, a group of lenders said, citing depleted cash, a changing industry and a controlling shareholder who wants to block the sale, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The lenders, a trustee or an independent committee should conduct the planned asset auction, the lenders said in a filing yesterday in court. Since the chapter 11 case began, LightSquared’s cash has dwindled by $125 million to about $61 million, Steve Zelin of financial adviser Blackstone Group LP said in support of the lenders.

Real estate investment firm Hackman Capital Partners LLC is betting it can turn a sweet profit by acquiring out of bankruptcy proceedings property and other assets from the former Hostess Brands Inc. empire, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Under the terms of the deal authorized by a bankruptcy court last week, an affiliate of Los Angeles-based Hackman will pay the newly renamed Old HB Inc. $62.5 million for 140 vacant properties. The portfolio of equipment and real estate in 34 states includes about 3,400 vehicles and bread-delivery vans, seven factories as well as warehouses and storefronts that once sold the trademark Twinkies and Wonder Bread. Hackman, which specializes in turning around distressed industrial properties, expects to resell most of the real estate in the next 12 months to companies such as bakeries and manufacturers that will own and occupy them.

Charles and David Koch, two of the world's richest men, have walked away from talks to buy the Tribune Co.'s newspaper assets, concluding that the papers were not economically viable, Reuters reported yesterday. Their company, Koch Industries, continues to have an interest in the media business and is exploring a broad range of opportunities. The Daily Caller said that the brothers had decided not to pursue the newspapers, which include the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, as Tribune Co. plans for them to be separated from websites like CareerBuilder.com, which is owned by Tribune Co. This could leave the newspapers without an important source of revenue.