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The new proposed buyer for the shuttered Revel Casino Hotel said yesterday that he will not give up his legal challenge to the auction of the Atlantic City, N.J., complex even though the winning bidder walked away from the deal. Revel filed papers overnight seeking approval to terminate its deal with Brookfield Property Partners LP and schedule a hearing to approve the sale to backup bidder Polo North Country Club Inc., an investment vehicle of Glenn Straub. Brookfield won the auction for Revel with a $110 million bid in October, outbidding Straub. Straub, a Florida developer, had at the time told Reuters he was prepared to bid up to at least $134 million. Straub has been pursuing an appeal of the order by Bankruptcy Judge Gloria Burns approving the sale to Brookfield.

Shuttered Revel Casino Hotel filed an emergency motion yesterday, seeking approval to terminate its deal with Brookfield Property Partners LP and schedule a hearing to approve the sale to backup bidder Polo North Country Club Inc., Reuters reported today. Brookfield won the auction for Atlantic City, New Jersey's bankrupt Revel with a $110 million bid in October, outbidding Polo North Country Club. Florida developer Glenn Straub, who owns Polo, had at that time told Reuters he was prepared to bid up to at least $134 million. Last month, Brookfield Property made a surprise announcement that it was walking away from its October agreement for the 1,400-room hotel complex, blaming a disagreement over a utility contract for the faltering deal. It did not provide an official notice terminating the deal at that time, leaving some hope the sale could be rescued.

The remnants of First Mariner Bancorp won bankruptcy court approval of a liquidation plan that promises to pay investors in bank-holding company's debt about 21 cents on the dollar, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Bankruptcy Judge David E. Rice yesterday signed off on the liquidation plan for Capital Trust Holdings, the name for what's left of the company following the sale of its stake in the 1st Mariner bank chain. The debt investors had purchased about $63 million in trust-preferred securities from First Mariner.

ABI’s Commission to Study the Reform of Chapter 11 unveiled hundreds of ideas yesterday for a “substantial modernization” of Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, Bloomberg News reported today. The Commission’s report followed more than two years’ research into ways to fix distressed companies, the group said in a fact sheet. They include making it easier to obtain financing during bankruptcy and creating an alternative path for small and medium-sized businesses to reorganize. The group suggests its proposal can accelerate companies’ exit from bankruptcy under chapter 11, which covers reorganizations, by adding a rule to avoid drawn-out and often expensive valuation fights between senior- and junior-ranking creditors. Lower-ranking creditors could get a chance at recovery if, after exiting chapter 11, the reorganized company’s value increases to a point where they “might have been in the money or received a greater recovery if the firm had been valued at a later date,” according to the Commission’s report.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-12-08/bankruptcy-group-offers-con…

Click here to read the ABI Chapter 11 Reform Commission’s final report.
http://commission.abi.org/

To watch the ABI press conference yesterday releasing the final report, please click here.
http://commission.abi.org/

Sign up today for a special abiLIVE webinar tomorrow afternoon taking an in-depth look at the Commission’s final report.
http://www.abiworld.org/webinars/2014/1210Web/

RadioShack is confused by the mixed signals of a lender who flip-flopped to push the troubled retailer into bankruptcy, the New York Times reported today. Salus Capital — who joined Cerberus Capital Management — now claims RadioShack is in default, though the money-losing retailer yesterday made a public presentation explaining why it was not. Its contention was that it did not borrow money in October from an affiliate, which it is prevented from doing. RadioShack says that since lender Standard General owns less than 10 percent of its voting stock, it does not qualify as such. RadioShack term lenders Cerberus and now Salus on Dec. 2 claimed the company had defaulted, since Standard General qualifies as an affiliate because it owned a greater-than-10-percent company stake. If RadioShack cannot reach a deal with the two lenders, it may need to file for bankruptcy next month.

Top restructuring professionals say that U.S. corporate bankruptcy law is broken and are pushing lawmakers for changes that would give struggling companies a better shot at survival, The Wall Street Journal reported today. In the report, industry professionals called on federal lawmakers to pass reforms that they say would make the chapter 11 process cheaper and more efficient, potentially saving jobs and stabilizing the economy. The 400-page report from ABI’s Commission to Study the Reform of Chapter 11 describes how federal lawmakers could restore protections that have eroded since the last major overhaul of corporate reorganization law in 1978. The proposed changes to the law could make chapter 11 cheaper and simpler for small businesses, which would have access to a new restructuring advisor and no longer have to pay for an expensive committee of creditors in most cases. It would also make it easier for small-business owners to hold on to their companies.

The ABI Commission to Study the Reform of Chapter 11 released its final report today containing recommendations for modernizing the Bankruptcy Code for chapter 11 business reorganizations. “Chapter 11 works to rehabilitate companies, preserve jobs, and provide value to creditors only if distressed companies and their stakeholders actually use the chapter 11 process to facilitate an in-court or out-of-court resolution of the company’s financial distress,” according to the Commission’s final report. “Chapter 11 in turn needs to offer tools to resolve a debtor’s financial distress in a cost-effective and efficient manner.” Funded by ABI and the Anthony H.N. Schnelling Endowment Fund, the Commission’s final report incorporates the recommendations of the Commission’s 13 advisory committees, which examined key issues in corporate bankruptcies and presented testimony at 17 public hearings held between 2012 and 2014. More than 130 other leading experts participated on topical advisory committees to thoroughly study chapter 11 practice in the most comprehensive study of its kind in more than a decade.

A bankruptcy court judge on Friday approved the $10.5 million sale of a shuttered paper mill to a Wisconsin company that wants to reopen it and bring back about 200 workers by year’s end, The Associated Press reported on Friday. Expera Specialty Solutions of Kaukauna said that it plans to reopen the Old Town Fuel & Fiber mill once it closes on the deal. The current owners cited high operating costs and foreign competition when the mill furloughed about 200 workers and suspended operations in August. Hon. Louis Kornreich approved the transaction, which calls for Expera to purchase the company for $7.3 million in cash now and $3.2 million later. The judge’s order said that the deal was “in the best interests of the debtor’s estate, its creditors, and other parties.”

Struggling electronics retailer RadioShack Corp. says that it will stop matching employees’ retirement-fund contributions and close stores to help cut costs, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. RadioShack will discontinue matching for 401(k) and 1165(e) plans on Feb. 1, according to an internal memo from Chief Executive Officer Joe Magnacca that was obtained by Bloomberg. The company plans to close as many as 1,100 stores in its next fiscal year, contingent upon consent from lenders, some of which have blocked attempts to shut them. RadioShack is also reviewing health benefits, according to the memo.

Womenswear retailer Deb Stores Holding LLC joined clothing chains including Loehmann’s Inc. and Coldwater Creek Inc. in filing for bankruptcy, saying a shortage of capital left it with “old, tired stores,” Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The Philadelphia-based operator of Deb Shops sought chapter 11 protection yesterday with plans to close some stores and sell inventory if it can’t find a buyer for the business. The company specializes in juniors “fast fashion” and offers moderately priced clothing, accessories and shoes for young women. As of Sept. 30, it had 295 locations, according to court filings. The company said that it has been working jointly with Gordon Brothers Retail Partners and Hilco Merchant Resources on an agreement to liquidate merchandise and that it will seek approval to designate the venture as the stalking-horse bidder in a court-supervised auction.