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A proposal to pay Brookstone Holdings Corp. executives at least $840,000 in bonuses faces opposition from a federal bankruptcy watchdog, who argues that the company isn't making it difficult enough to earn the extra cash, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. U.S. Trustee Roberta DeAngelis said in a Friday court filing that tying the bonuses to a sale offer struck before Brookstone sought bankruptcy protection doesn't push the executives enough to enhance the company's value in order to earn the bonuses. Brookstone filed for bankruptcy on April 3 with a plan to sell its business to the owner of the Spencer's retail chain for $146.3 million.

Bankruptcy Judge Sean H. Lane ruled that former American Airlines parent AMR Corp. doesn't have the unilateral right to terminate benefits to about 46,930 retirees, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Judge Lane on Thursday denied AMR's request, brought during its chapter 11 case, for a summary judgment that it could unilaterally modify the health and welfare benefits it offered its retirees because its benefit programs "lack language categorically reserving" its right to do so. AMR had sought to shift the cost of the benefits to its retirees, who include union and nonunion members.

The Judicial Conference of the United States has approved several bankruptcy related fee increases to take effect starting June 1. Based on the chapter, the cost to file will be:

- Chapter 7: $335
- Chapter 13: $310
- Chapter 9, 11 and 15: $1,717
- Chapter 12: $275

The fee schedule changes project to raise about $35 million per year for the courts, based on current case loads. For more information, visit http://www.tnwb.uscourts.gov/PDFs/news/DIR14-035[1].pdf

RadioShack Corp. is mired in negotiations with its lenders over plans to close as many as 1,100 stores, complicating the struggling consumer-electronics retailer's turnaround efforts, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The delay also is intensifying tensions with some lenders, who were surprised by the store-closing plan when RadioShack publicly disclosed it on March 4. The company, which operates about 4,300 stores in the U.S., said at the time that the plan still needed permission from its lenders, adding that its credit agreements allowed it to close only about 200 stores without the approval of lead lenders Salus Capital Partners and GE Capital, a unit of General Electric Co. The company also said in March that it planned to spend the next month hammering out an agreement with its lenders before choosing a liquidator to wind down the stores.

Efforts to restructure Energy Future Holdings are progressing, albeit slowly, as the embattled Texas utility moves toward an expected bankruptcy filing, Reuters reported yesterday. The company said in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing yesterday that talks will continue and negotiating stakeholders will remain bound by non-disclosure agreements. Energy Future Holdings is expected to file for bankruptcy around the end of the month, at the expiration of a 30-day grace period on skipped interest payments. For lenders to Energy Future's competitive merchant power business, who hold about half of the company's more than $40 billion in total debt, the main discussion point is tax liability. The lenders, which include private equity giants like Apollo Global Management and Oaktree Capital Group, are warming to the idea of a deal that does not include the so-called "tax basis step-up" they were initially seeking. The lenders had hoped to acquire the power merchant unit through bankruptcy using the debt they are owed, which would allow them to increase, or "step up," the unit's tax basis and save money on future taxes, perhaps more than $1 billion.

Coldwater Creek Inc. won court approval to borrow $42 million to finance operations while the women’s clothing retailer prepares for going-out-of-business sales at its more than 370 stores, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The loan from current lender Wells Fargo & Co. will allow the company to maximize returns for creditors, Coldwater said in court papers. Coldwater, founded as a catalog business 30 years ago, said last week it intends to start liquidating inventory just before the May 11 Mother’s Day holiday. Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon at a hearing yesterday granted the company interim approval to borrow as much as $42 million of a $75 million financing package.

Stephen Shires put his company, S.E. Shires Inc., into bankruptcy last week, telling a bankruptcy judge that the instrument maker has a purchase offer worth more than $1 million from an Eastman Music Co. division that intends to keep the business operating, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. The 40-worker company filed for chapter 11 protection last week after tax collectors — in pursuit of unpaid debts — went after the company’s bank account. Turned away by traditional lenders, the company borrowed money instead through factoring companies that provide temporary financing “at an unsustainable interest rate of 20 to 40 percent.” Last year, the company had sales of $2.8 million but lost about $379,000, according to court papers. The purchase offer from Eastman Brass Instruments Inc. would give the company $1 million in cash to pay its debts. The buyer also agreed to extend a $230,000 bankruptcy loan and to help the company get another $700,000 loan later.

N.W. Holding Co., a St. Louis-based commercial truck leasing, repairing and fueling company, has filed for bankruptcy and is seeking to reorganize, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported today. Several other related companies also owned by the Costello family simultaneously filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy: Nu-Way Service Station, Nu-Way Repair Co., Nu-Way Fuel Distributors Co., and Rent-Me Trailer Leasing Inc. Combined, the trucking companies listed estimated liabilities ranging between $2 million and $4 million and estimated assets ranging between $1.6 million and $11.6 million, according to court documents.

A bankruptcy judge approved Glacial Energy Holdings Inc.'s so-called first-day motions, which will allow the electricity and natural gas retailer to pay employees and to borrow the funds it needs to continue operations, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The approvals from Judge Christopher Sontchi take the company a step closer to fulfilling a plan to sell its business to senior lender Vantage Commodities Financial Services LLC, subject to higher bids at auction. Judge Sontchi is allowing Glacial Energy to pay its vendors, access its bank accounts, as well as retain the professionals needed to handle its bankruptcy case.

Mach Gen LLC, the owner of three natural-gas fired power plants, will cut debt by about $1 billion as it exits bankruptcy after winning court approval of a prepackaged restructuring plan in just over a month, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. Second-lien lenders will gain control of the company. The plan was “overwhelmingly supported” by creditors and owners, allowing Mach Gen to get through bankruptcy in about 40 days, company lawyer Michael E. Comerford said at a hearing on Friday. Mach Gen sought bankruptcy protection March 3 listing assets of about $750 million and debt of about $1.6 billion. Under an agreement reached before the filing, second-lien lenders will swap about $1 billion in debt for 93.5 percent of the reorganized company’s equity. Current shareholders will get the remaining 6.5 percent of the equity.