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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.

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.

Catalyst Capital Group Inc. won a bankruptcy auction for Advantage Rent a Car, whose future has been under the microscope since it became a crucial part of antitrust regulators’ decision to bless the merger of two major car-rental firms last year, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The Canadian private-equity firm beat out German rental car company Sixt SE at Monday’s auction, agreeing to forgive up to $46 million in debt it extended to fund Advantage’s chapter 11 case. Advantage filed for bankruptcy protection just months after Hertz Global Holdings Inc. shed the chain so that it could buy Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group Inc. Looking to preserve competition in the highly concentrated $24 billion U.S. car rental industry, the Federal Trade Commission required Hertz to divest Advantage to complete the $2.3 billion purchase of Dollar Thrifty. But just months after the government settlement was reached, Advantage filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with plans to sell itself to the highest bidder.

General Motors named Mary Barra as its first female CEO, replacing Dan Akerson, who will retire next year, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Barra joined GM 33 years ago as a college intern, eventually becoming an engineering manager before running one of its big U.S. assembly plants. She received global experience managing human resources and, more recently, the company's world-wide product development group. In naming Barra, GM restructured its top executive ranks, splitting the role of CEO and board chairman and shifting finance chief Dan Ammann to a new post as president, overseeing its global operations.

Two major investors who bought some of the $540 million worth of U.S. bonds issued by Chinese solar-panel maker Suntech Power Holdings Co. are fighting a bid by a smaller group of bond investors to force the company into bankruptcy, Dow Jones Newswires reported today. Investment firms Clearwater Capital Partners LLC and a Spinnaker Capital Group affiliate told a bankruptcy judge on Monday that allowing the chapter 7 bankruptcy for Suntech to move forward would result in a smaller recovery than under the restructuring plan that's in the works for the company, which was once the world's largest solar panel maker, according to papers filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan.

Fisker Automotive Holdings Inc. looked to convince a bankruptcy judge yesterday that its chapter 11 should proceed at a rapid pace, Reuters reported yesterday. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross began yesterday's hearing by suggesting that the company should slow down its plan to sell its assets to Hong Kong tycoon Richard Li and give creditors four more weeks to get a handle on the situation. "I'm not sure why another few weeks relatively speaking would harm this process," Judge Gross said. "It would allow time for the creditors' committee to continue and complete its investigations." Fisker filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 22 and a creditors' committee was formed only on Thursday. The company has not produced a car in almost 18 months and the judge said that there was no business that needed to be rescued through the breathing space of bankruptcy. Judge Gross gave his approval during the hearing yesterday to a provisional disclosure statement explaining Fisker's repayment plan, which will be sent to creditors to guide their vote. Gross scheduled a hearing for Jan. 3 at which he will decide if the plan of reorganization should be approved by the court, and also to approve the sale of the company's assets.

Bankruptcy Judge Shelley C. Chapman yesterday allowed LightSquared to move forward with its lawsuit against Dish Network Corp. and Chairman Charlie Ergen over his purchases of LightSquared debt before Dish bid for the wireless satellite company's assets, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Judge Chapman denied a bid by Dish and Ergen to dismiss the suit, allowing LightSquared to go after Ergen on its charge that he bought the debt on behalf of Dish and not himself. Such purchases would have been illegal under LightSquared's credit agreement, which prohibited competitors from buying the debt.

General Motors Co. is free from U.S. taxpayer ownership almost half a decade after first receiving government aid, underscoring the domestic auto industry’s rebound from the deepest downturn since the Great Depression, Bloomberg News reported today. The Treasury Department’s sale yesterday of final shares of GM signals the end of Government Motors, as the nation’s largest automaker was derisively labeled by some critics after the U.S. government stepped in with emergency funding in 2008. Bailouts from the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations helped GM avoid liquidation and reorganize in a 2009 bankruptcy that has given new life to the company. Buoyed by lower debt, reduced labor costs and a focus on only its strongest brands, GM is emblematic of a revitalized U.S. auto industry that’s on pace to reap the fastest sales growth since 2007. While the U.S. said it lost about $10.5 billion on its investment of $49.5 billion, the government’s exit paves the way for an influx of fresh investor money. The exit would end restrictions on pay for top executives that the largest U.S. automaker has said hampered recruiting, and analysts have predicted it may clear the way for the company to initiate a dividend or stock buyback.

A fight for control of a Texas oil refinery between Palm Beach billionaire Harry Sargeant III and members of his family has forced their jointly owned company, Trigeant Ltd., into bankruptcy, the Wall Street Journal reported today. On one side of the dispute is Mr. Sargeant III, a former Marine fighter pilot turned shipping magnate and asphalt mogul. On the other are Sargeant's two brothers, Daniel and James, and his father, Harry Sargeant II, who put Trigeant into chapter 11 last week in Florida. Together the Sargeant family owns Trigeant, which provides fuel and asphalt products to the housing and transportation industries. Mr. Sargeant III's father and two brothers, who own 70 percent of the company, removed himfrom his position as manager in February. The family says Sargeant III, who has a $22 million lien against the plant through a company he controls called BTB Refining LLC, is attempting to prevent the refinery from operating in an effort to lower its value and obtain ownership of it.

American Airlines Group Inc. was born on Monday after AMR Corp.'s American Airlines stepped out of bankruptcy and merged with US Airways Group Inc., the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. Under the terms of the stock-swap merger, US Airways shareholders received 28 percent of the new company's shares, while AMR's creditors and equity interests are slated to receive the rest. The two-year restructuring and complex merger agreement will repay AMR's creditors with interest and give its big unions and common holders a big portion of equity in the new company.