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Mississippi pipe manufacturer PSL-North America LLC says it needs more time to divide the proceeds from its $104 million sale to India's Jindal Tubular, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. In a filing on Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., PSL said that it needs more time to hash out a consensual plan with creditors to winding down its business following the closing of the sale. PSL is requesting an additional three months, until April 13, to develop the plan. Without an extension of the exclusivity period, creditors and other parties could file competing plans, which at a minimum would complicate the confirmation of PSL's own plan.

Shipping firms have paid millions of dollars into U.S. accounts to prevent their vessels from being detained due to non-payment of bills for fuel supplied by the bankrupt OW Bunker, indicating the impact from the collapse of the Danish firm was spreading, Reuters reported today. OW Bunker filed for bankruptcy in November after losing almost $300 million in alleged fraudulent trading in Singapore, leading to claims by distributors who sold shipping fuel on behalf of OW Bunker but had not been paid. Nearly 13 cases involving bunker bills totaling about $12 million have been filed at New York's southern district court, a maritime lawyer said. U.S. court documents seen by Reuters show 11 firms, including Germany's Hapag Lloyd and European gas carrier Exmar, have agreed to pay about $10.3 million into court and a law firm's trust account since November.

UniTek Global Services, Inc. has emerged from chapter 11 with significantly less debt, supportive customers and vendors, and a focused strategy to provide infrastructure services to the satellite television, broadband cable, wireless telecommunications, transportation and public safety industries, the ABL Advisor reported today. The company announced new leadership with John Haggerty appointed to the position of interim Chief Executive Officer. Haggerty will succeed Rocky Romanella who successfully steered the Company through the chapter 11 process. UniTek is now majority-owned by New Mountain Finance Corporation and entities managed by Littlejohn & Co., LLC, both of whom have extensive private equity expertise, as well as deep relationships in the specialty contracting and fulfillment services industries.

A Kentucky company that’s brewing iced tea inspired by “Duck Dynasty’s” Uncle Si on the hit A&E reality TV show has filed for bankruptcy, accusing the show’s stars of breaking their promises to promote the beverage, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The beverage maker’s federal lawsuit against Duck Commander Inc. — the Robertson clan’s duck-call business in Louisiana — portrays the “Duck Dynasty” brand as growing too big, too soon. In the glow of the spotlight, Duck Commander has made dozens of licensing agreements to grow its brand. That includes a deal with Chinook USA LLC to make and distribute a beverage named for Uncle Si, who drinks from a bottomless cup of iced tea on the show. At least one branding expert said the Duck Commander family has too many products and trinkets, telling officials at the beverage maker that it’s “sad to walk through their retail store in Monroe and see all the junk they’ve licensed,” according to the suit. The over-scheduled Duck Commander family allegedly broke its contract to promote Uncle Si’s Iced Tea in media interviews and special appearances, according to the lawsuit. Si Robertson also failed to promote the tea on nationally televised morning shows, the lawsuit said.

Unhappy creditors of Caesars Entertainment Corp., seeking to put the brakes on its planned reorganization, may have temporarily given the company more freedom to operate by pushing its main unit into an involuntary bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Because the chapter 11 petition filed yesterday in Delaware wasn’t voluntary, the casino company doesn’t face immediate restrictions on selling or transferring assets, as it might otherwise under the Bankruptcy Code. Nor does Caesars need a bankruptcy judge’s permission to make other major decisions, said Bruce Grohsgal, a visiting professor of bankruptcy law at Widener University School of Law in Wilmington, Delaware. The creditors that filed the involuntary bankruptcy, Appaloosa Investment LP and funds affiliated with Oaktree Capital and Tennenbaum Capital, must persuade the judge to place restrictions on Caesars that are otherwise automatic in a voluntary case, Grohsgal said. The company has the right to fight those restrictions. Last year, a trustee for the same creditors sued Caesars, claiming the parent company was plundering the best assets of its main operating unit. That case and a similar lawsuit will now be automatically halted by the unit’s involuntary bankruptcy.

General Motors Co. intends to boost its capital expenditures by 20 percent this year as it looks to grow its luxury brand, improve its overall vehicle portfolio and respond to regulatory demands, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The automaker today outlined a plan at an automotive conference to spend as much as $9 billion over the next 12 months — the highest amount the company has spent since emerging from bankruptcy in 2009. GM Chief Financial Officer Chuck Stevens said the company intends to plow the money into the development of more Cadillac models while improving the current offerings such as the Chevrolet Malibu.

The Final Report of ABI’s Commission to Study the Reform of Chapter 11 explains how existing chapter 11 law, designed with large companies in mind and last comprehensively overhauled in 1978, is too slow, too costly and “not working” for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), dissuading them from even attempting reorganization, according to a Bloomberg News analysis yesterday. The Commission recommended that Congress make any $10 million company automatically eligible for treatment as an SME, while one with less than $50 million in assets or debt could petition the court for SME treatment. Companies with publicly traded securities and individuals wouldn’t qualify. The Commission set out ways to make Chapter 11 simpler and less costly for SMEs while providing tools for them to reorganize effectively.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2015-01-12/abi-wants-chapter-11-eas…

Click here to read the Commission’s recommendations for SME cases: https://abiworld.box.com/s/uzc6yo7dr8lt1g2m4uxs

Salus Capital Partners has offered RadioShack Corp. $500 million in bankruptcy financing, according to people familiar with the matter, a move that could increase the lender’s influence if the struggling retailer ends up in chapter 11, the Wall Street Journal reported today. RadioShack hasn’t said that it plans to seek bankruptcy protection, but the Fort Worth, Texas-based consumer electronics retailer is running out of cash after posting losses in each of the last 11 quarters. In September, it warned that it could be forced into bankruptcy court if it couldn’t raise new funds or get relief from lenders, including Salus, that are blocking its effort to close hundreds of stores. Salus’s unsolicited offer for a debtor-in-possession loan expires on Thursday. The new debt would replace a $585 million financing package the company first obtained in late 2013, some of which consists of credit lines dependent on the value of RadioShack assets.

The Rehabilitation Center of St. Petersburg nursing home has emerged from bankruptcy — despite protests from Medicare officials — after a bankruptcy judge agreed it fixed record-keeping and patient care problems, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The Florida facility told a bankruptcy judge that it has repaid all of its debts and plans to continue caring for its roughly 110 patients after emerging from chapter 11 protection on Friday. The nursing home filed for bankruptcy on Aug. 15, preventing Medicare officials from halting payments for the facility's low-income patients after finding "rampant, serious problems" at the facility last year.

A U.S. unit of China’s Suntech Power Holdings Corp., once the world’s largest solar-panel maker, followed its parent in seeking bankruptcy protection from creditors after increased competition pushed down prices, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. San Francisco-based Suntech America Inc., an affiliate of Wuxi, China-based Suntech Power, today listed more than $100 million each in assets and debt in chapter 11 filings in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware. Suntech Power, following creditor demands, filed for chapter 15 protection last February in Manhattan. U.S. bondholders moved to put the company into bankruptcy on their own with an involuntary bankruptcy liquidation under chapter 7 after it defaulted on about $541 million of their debt.