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Flowers Foods Inc. on Friday said that it has agreed to buy Wonder and other well-known bread brands from Hostess Brands Inc. for $390 million, as part of the latter company's bankruptcy reorganization, Reuters reported on Friday. The Thomasville, Ga.-based company said that it agreed to pay $360 million for the Wonder, Butternut, Home Pride, Merita and Nature's Pride brands, as well as 20 bakeries and 38 depots. It also entered a second contract where it agreed to pay $30 million for the Beefsteak brand. Flowers already owns brands such as Cobblestone Mill, Nature's Own and Tastykake. It said it expects the purchases to add to earnings in 2013, and that it would finance them with cash on hand plus debt.

Actor Patrick Dempsey promised to rescue Seattle's Tully's coffee chain with a $9.15 million bid to buy it out of bankruptcy, Reuters reported on Friday. The "Grey's Anatomy" star who plays Dr. Derek Shepherd, a surgeon at fictional Seattle Grace Hospital, said that his offer bested those from six rival bidders - including global coffee giant Starbucks Corp. Tully's owner TC Global Inc filed for chapter 11 protection to reorganize in October. Bidders said that a bankruptcy court hearing on the sale is set for Jan. 11 in Seattle.

Flowers Foods Inc. and Grupo Bimbo SAB are in discussions to acquire pieces of Hostess Brands Inc.'s bread business, as the maker of Wonder Bread and Twinkies sells off assets and liquidates, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Hostess could disclose Flowers, Grupo Bimbo or others as opening bidders in a looming bankruptcy-court auction for the assets as soon as this week. Hostess, whose bread brands include Wonder Bread, Nature's Pride, Home Pride, Merita and Butternut, is still determining how to split up assets and package them for buyers. Hostess's bread brands could fetch more than $350 million.

Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon approved the sale of three Digital Domain Media Group Inc. patents to three-dimensional-technology licensing company RealD Inc. for $5.45 million, Dow Jones DBR Small Cap reported today. The sale was one component of a second set of assets Digital Domain is auctioning after having sold the majority of its assets in September for $30.2 million to a joint venture formed by Beijing Galloping Horse Film Co. and Reliance MediaWorks Ltd.

The sale of men's suit maker HMX Group for $70.1 million to Authentic Brands Group , which is owned by private equity firm Leonard Green & Partners LP , received bankruptcy court approval on Wednesday, Dow Jones DBR Small Cap reported today. The deal is expected to close Friday, according to Leonard, Street and Deinard's Robert Kugler, who represents the committee of unsecured creditors in the case.

Eastman Kodak Co. agreed to sell its digital imaging patents for about $525 million, a key step to bringing the photography pioneer out of bankruptcy in the first half of 2013, Reuters reported yesterday. The deal for the 1,100 patents allows Kodak to fulfill a condition for securing $830 million in financing. The patent deal was reached with a consortium led by Intellectual Ventures and RPX Corp., and which includes some of the world's biggest technology companies, which will license or acquire the patents. Those companies are Adobe Systems Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., Facebook Inc., Fujifilm, Google Inc., Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, HTC Corp., Microsoft Corp., Research In Motion Ltd, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Shutterfly Inc., according to court documents.

Journal Register Co. has agreed to push back its auction date three weeks in response to protests from Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which took aim at the company's "rushed" efforts to sell its assets, Dow Jones DBR Small Cap reported today. The publisher of newspapers including the New Haven Register is poised to seek approval of the rules it wants to govern its sale process at a hearing today.

Bankruptcy Judge Mary Walrath on Monday said that LSP Energy can take $13.25 million off of the nearly $300 million purchase price for its Mississippi power plant as the sale is held up by an outage that began in September, Dow Jones DBR Small Cap reported today. LSP last month sought permission to cut the price South Mississippi Electric Power Association will pay for the 837-megawatt gas-fired plant to $272.6 million from $285.9 million to compensate the company for the "risk associated with taking ownership of the Facility when all repairs may not have been completed."

An American company that lost out in its bid for the assets of failed, federally backed battery maker A123 is appealing a judge's decision last week to sell the company to a Chinese competitor, The Washington Times reported yesterday. The sale of A123 Systems to Chinese-based Wanxiang has prompted critics in Congress to urge the federal government to intervene and block the sale on national security and other grounds. Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls filed its appeal with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware early Monday, saying that the company should have been paid a so-called breakup fee and expense reimbursement in the deal selling A123. The company also said that it is ready to make another bid for A123 if the deal with Wanxiang falls apart, which remains a possibility. Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and John Thune (R-S.D.) issued a joint statement last week calling for a "full review" of the bankruptcy transaction by the federal government. "In the end, the taxpayers will be left having to repay interest to China for a business that a Chinese company now owns," the lawmakers said.

Journal Register Co.'s sale plans have elicited protests from parties, including the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC), which said it is taking aim at the company's "rushed" efforts to auction off its assets, Dow Jones DBR Small Cap reported yesterday. The newspaper publisher is aiming for an auction next month and calling for rival bids of at least $122.15 million to be submitted by Jan. 18. In court papers, PBGC said that the proposal "does not facilitate a competitive auction process that maximizes value to the debtors' estate." Instead, the "rushed schedule" could deter would-be buyers from throwing their hats into the ring, it said. Journal Register wants to hold its auction on Jan. 23 with a sale hearing on Jan. 25. PBGC said it is particularly concerned that the proposed marketing period would fall over the holidays, further complicating parties' efforts to "adequately develop a competitive bid during that time period." A judge is set to consider signing off on the bid rules at a hearing on Thursday. This is Journal Register's second trip through bankruptcy in recent years.