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Oreck Corp., the Nashville, Tenn.-based manufacturer of upright vacuums and other cleaning products, has filed for chapter 11 protection and is looking for a buyer, the Tennessean reported today. Oreck said that despite the filing, the company will continue daily operations without interruption. Oreck laid off an undisclosed number of employees at the end of January, as well as in October 2012. At the time, CEO Doug Cahill said that the layoffs were not a cost-cutting maneuver, and were instead a result of a shift away from the company's traditional emphasis on direct sales. Oreck has about 70 employees in the corporate office in Nashville, and it employs 250 workers at its plant in Cookeville. In addition, the company has about 325 employees at its 96 company-owned retail stores. The company said that it anticipates that after the sale, plant operations and corporate headquarters will stay in Tennessee.

Ahern Rentals Inc. is seeking court approval for $495 million in financing to support a bankruptcy-exit plan that the construction equipment company is hoping will trump a competing plan put forth by its bondholders, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Ahern said in a court filing it has lined up a $350 million senior secured credit facility and $145 million term loan exit facility to help pay off debt that would come due in the event its chapter 11 restructuring plan is chosen by creditors.

U.S. Trustee Tracy Hope Davis is arguing against pay boosts for two financial-advisory firms that evaluated American Airlines' parent AMR Corp.'s pursuit of $3.25 billion in new financing, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The financing would help the struggling airline pay off some bond debt and fund its exit from bankruptcy protection after merging with U.S. Airways Groups Inc. Under proposed tweaks to their hiring agreements, financial advisory firms Rothschild Inc. and Moelis & Co. would split another $15 million for their help in evaluating the financing deal—an additional payment that is unwarranted for firms that already have "generous fee arrangements," Davis argued in court papers filed on Thursday.

When Eastman Kodak emerges from bankruptcy this summer or fall, it will be a shadow of the blue-chip corporate giant it once was, according to a New York Times DealBook blog analysis on Friday. Consumers will probably still be able to find Kodak-brand film in vacation spots around the world. They will still be able to buy digital cameras bearing the Kodak name. And they will still be able to download and print their digital pictures at kiosks in their local drugstores. But those businesses will no longer be owned or controlled by Kodak. As part of the more than yearlong bankruptcy process, all those businesses were sold to others. Antonio M. Perez, Kodak’s oft-criticized chief executive, who has been trying to stage a turnaround of the company since 2005 and has overseen it through bankruptcy proceedings, said last week that the company had a “clear path forward” and was positioned for a “profitable and sustainable future.” But some skeptics sounded warnings about Kodak’s outlook, noting that certain commercial businesses that the company is banking on are fiercely competitive and that Kodak’s own projections show steep declines in growth in other business lines.

TimeGate Studios Inc., a video game developer behind “Section 8” and “Aliens: Colonial Marines,” has filed for bankruptcy and has put its business on the auction block after an appellate court reinstated a $9 million judgment against the company, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. TimeGate’s lenders have agreed to serve as the stalking-horse bidder for an auction of the company’s assets in a deal valued at $2.6 million. The purchase price, which must include at least $150,000 in cash, is subject to higher bids at a bankruptcy auction.

A lawyer for the United Mine Workers of America on Friday told a bankruptcy judge that it would be forced to strike if Patriot Coal Corp. succeeds in voiding its contract with the union, Reuters reported on Friday. Attorney Fred Perillo said that the union would do everything in its power to reach a consensual agreement with Patriot, which is seeking to impose $150 million a year in labor cuts. But if Bankruptcy Judge Kathy Surratt-States approves the proposal, which would end pension contributions, alter health care and lower pay rates, Perillo said a strike will follow.

Total bankruptcy filings in the United States decreased 8 percent in April over last year, according to data provided by Epiq Systems, Inc. Bankruptcy filings totaled 100,702 in April 2013, down from the April 2012 total of 108,996. Consumer filings declined 7 percent to 96,344 from the April 2012 consumer filing total of 103,798. Total commercial filings in April 2013 decreased to 4,358, representing a 16 percent decline from the 5,198 business filings recorded in April 2012. Conversely, total commercial chapter 11 filings increased 5 percent to 701 filings in April from the 666 commercial chapter 11 filings registered in April 2012.

Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd, whose main unit is in insolvency proceedings, said that it would delay filing full-year results for 2012 as it needs more time to restate its financial statements for the previous two years, Reuters reported yesterday. Suntech, which said revenue fell by an estimated 48 percent in 2012, had planned to file the restated results by April 30 but said that it would need more time to assess the impact of restructuring at its main unit in China, a moratorium on debt repayments in Europe and more time to continue its ongoing discussions with the holders of its 3 percent convertible notes. Suntech said it would meet creditors of its main manufacturing unit in China, Wuxi Suntech, on May 22.

Eastman Kodak Co. filed a chapter 11 plan that cratered the stock and bumped up the unsecured notes, although the plan may be revised to pay off second-lien debt fully in cash, as Bloomberg Law's Lee Pacchia and Bloomberg News bankruptcy columnist Bill Rochelle discuss on their video. Next, Rochelle and Pacchia address a decision by a Delaware bankruptcy judge in the reorganization of School Specialty Inc. apparently holding that no make-whole premium will ever be too large for approval. They then discuss the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision not to review a decision dismissing an appeal from a confirmation order approving the Charter Communications Inc. chapter 11 plan. The final item is an opinion telling lawyers for consumer bankrupts how they can violate ethical rules when signing clients to flat-fee arrangements. Click here to watch the video.

Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain said yesterday that he is prepared to let creditors vote on Reader’s Digest Association Inc.’s chapter 11 exit plan, which would give control of the company to a group of bondholders, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Judge Drain approved the Reader’s Digest’s disclosure statement after it negotiated with creditors to give them better recoveries.