USEC Inc., a supplier of enriched uranium for commercial nuclear power plants, said it expected to file for bankruptcy protection in the first quarter of 2014, Reuters reported today. The company said it expected to file the pre-arranged and voluntary chapter 11 petition in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. The company said that it did not expect any its subsidiaries to file for bankruptcy.
EnCap Investment LP’s Robert Zorich has the bankruptcy court’s approval to complete his $1.7 million purchase of a large chunk of Alma Rosa Winery’s vineyards, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Although the winery is under new ownership, perhaps little about the pinot noir wines, made famous in the movie “Sideways,” will change. The deal plans for hall-of-fame winemaker Richard Sanford to continue producing wine on the property as an employee. The sale is still contingent on the approval of Sanford’s lender, Deutsche Bank National Trust, owed $2.6 million. The bank has filed a motion of no opposition, indicating it’s largely in favor of the deal.
Derek L. Limbocker, a onetime financial adviser, has sought protection from creditors in bankruptcy court, while he says he struggles to salvage his business and the 270,000 bottles of rare and valuable wine stored by financiers, high-powered litigators and real estate investors in his cellars in a West Chelsea warehouse, the New York Times reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Robert E. Gerber will hold a hearing today on whether to liquidate WineCare. The hearing will help shed light on what happened to the wines that WineCare stored in its temperature-controlled cellars, and why most of its clients still been unable to get their wine back.
An affiliate of investment firm Fortress Investment Group LLC is believed to have made a play to acquire the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Ltd., which was involved in a deadly crash this past summer, out of bankruptcy protection, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Bankruptcy trustee Robert J. Keach, who is overseeing the railway company's chapter 11 case, said on Friday that it is his "understanding" that proposed buyer Railroad Acquisition Holdings LLC is affiliated with Fortress, the publicly traded investment firm that has about $58 billion in assets under management. Railroad Acquisition Holdings has offered $14.25 million for Montreal, Maine & Atlantic, which owns the train that derailed in July, killing 47 people. The train, which included five locomotives and was carrying 72 carloads of crude oil, set off explosions that destroyed part of the small Quebec town Lac-Mégantic. The railway sought the protection of U.S. and Canadian courts after the accident in order to secure funds to pay the victims, who have brought litigation against the company. Since his appointment in August as the bankruptcy trustee, Keach has been working to centralize a number of derailment lawsuits in one U.S. court and to find a buyer. He has also obtained $3 million in bankruptcy financing for the railway and extended its Canadian operating license.
W.R. Grace & Co. is gearing up to emerge from bankruptcy by the end of January with $800 million worth of exit financing, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The precise timing of the end of a 12-year stay in chapter 11 hangs on a ruling on one remaining legal challenge, Mark Shelnitz, general counsel to the chemical company, said yesterday. It is not yet known when the final decision will come, but Grace has started the preparations to line up the financing and prepare the final legal documents for bankruptcy emergence in the hope that it will arrive soon, executives said.
Peregrine Financial Group's bankruptcy trustee plans to return up to $41 million to former customers of the failed futures brokerage in the second payout since the firm collapsed 17 months ago, Reuters reported yesterday. Court-appointed trustee Ira Bodenstein is seeking to return about 7 percent, or $27.5 million, to Peregrine customers who traded on U.S. exchanges, according to court filings. In the first payout last year, the group, which comprised the bulk of the firm's clients, received back about 30 percent of the money they had in accounts when Peregrine failed.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. released its strategy for dismantling big failing financial institutions even as board members said the plan continues to face major obstacles, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The FDIC’s guidance, opened for a 60-day public comment period yesterday, illuminates a key power bestowed on the agency by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act: the authority to seize and restructure a large, failing financial company. The FDIC will seize a U.S. firm at the parent-company level, impose losses on shareholders and give creditors equity in a new holding company, according to the strategy.
To read the FDIC's proposed strategy, please click here: http://www.fdic.gov/news/board/2013/2013-12-10_notice_dis-b_fr.pdf
U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn on Tuesday ruled that General Motors Co. is not required to pay $450 million to cover medical benefits for retirees, in a defeat for the United Auto Workers union, Reuters reported yesterday. In a 36-page decision, Judge Cohn said that the current GM did not assume any obligation for the payment, which the automaker had contracted to make two years before its June 2009 bankruptcy filing. The payment had been part of a June 2007 contract between the old GM, its former Delphi Corp. affiliate and the UAW. It was not, however, included in a different contract over medical benefits signed in July 2009 by the GM that emerged from chapter 11. The UAW claimed that the new GM owed the money by virtue of Delphi's own emergence from bankruptcy in October 2009. Judge Cohn, nonetheless, said that the language of the 2009 contract made clear that GM did not owe the payment.
Excel Maritime Carriers Ltd. has been cleared to start the polling on a chapter 11 debt restructuring plan that was drastically revised to pick up key support, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Robert D. Drain signed off on Tuesday on the package of materials going to creditors entitled to vote on the plan, which proposes to swap out debt for equity and some new debt. Excel filed for chapter 11 protection on July 1, having reached a deal with senior lenders on a restructuring. Junior creditors and a primary business connection, Robertson Maritime Investors LLC, attacked the original plan on the grounds it would have allowed the family of chairman Gabriel Panayotides to hold on to control of the company after bankruptcy, while many creditors went largely unpaid. The dispute threatened to break into a full-blown battle if Excel attempted to push the original plan through to confirmation. Mediation produced the new restructuring deal, which has the support of the official committee of unsecured creditors as well as holders of more than 80 percent of the senior debt.
Star Dynamics Corp., an Ohio defense contractor that has been embroiled in a legal battle with a BAE Systems PLC subsidiary for the last year, has filed for chapter 11 protection with a plan to sell its assets, Dow Jones Newswires reported yesterday. The company said in court documents filed on Tuesday that in July 2013, a state court issued an interim injunction preventing it from bidding on certain contracts identified by BAE and from developing a radar system. BAE had alleged "misappropriation of secrets," but most of the proceedings aren't public due to the nature of Star's and BAE's businesses. Although the order hasn't become final and Star said that it is objecting, the fight has drained resources during a time of industry-wide plight caused by cuts to federal spending. With more than $50.9 million in debt, Star decided that a bankruptcy sale of its assets was the best option.