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New England Compounding Pharmacy Inc. executives lost control of the administration of its chapter 11 case when a bankruptcy court judge on Thursday appointed a trustee to represent the pharmacy for the remainder of the case, Dow Jones DBR Small Cap reported today. The court's decision comes in the days following revelations that the company's four executives and shareholders were paid $16.43 million last year and transferred an additional $4.84 million to three affiliated companies that they also owned.

Eastman Kodak Co., the bankrupt photography pioneer, won bankruptcy court approval for $844 million in financing that it will use to complete its restructuring, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The package of loans, approved yesterday by Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper, can also be converted into $644 million exit financing to fund Kodak’s emergence from court protection, according to a court filing. Kodak, based in Rochester, New York, filed for bankruptcy in January 2012. Earlier this month, it won court approval to sell patents to a group of technology companies including Apple Inc. and Google Inc.

Struggling to find a buyer that would keep operations intact, executives at solar panel parts maker Satcon Technology Corp. are now looking for someone who would be willing to purchase the company in pieces at an auction, Dow Jones DBR Small Cap reported today.
Satcon Technology officials asked the company's bankruptcy judge to alter the court-approved auction rules to bump the company's auction to Feb. 4---two weeks earlier than they had planned.

C. Dean Metropoulos & Co. said that it plans to bid for the cakes business of bankrupt Twinkies maker Hostess Brands Inc. with Apollo Global Management, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The cake brands of the 82-year-old maker of Ding Dongs, Ho Hos and Drake’s Devil Dogs had drawn multiple bidders, Hostess lawyers said at a December court hearing. Potential buyers separately were interested in other Hostess products or manufacturing plants, according to Hostess. Hostess announced in a Jan. 11 statement that Flowers Foods Inc. is the lead bidder for most of the assets of its bread-baking operations.

Bankruptcy Judge Stuart Bernstein reserved judgment on Thursday in a hearing regarding the future of Hawker Beechcraft’s three pension plans, the Wichita Eagle reported on Friday. A settlement has been reached with an ad hoc retiree committee of salaried employees, the company said. The small group opposed the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.’s takeover of its plan, saying their benefits would be substantially reduced if the judge approved the takeover. The ad hoc committee is made up of nine or 10 retirees, but the settlement covers about 70 former salaried employees whose benefits would be reduced under PBGC caps, the company said. Other groups of retirees’ monthly benefits would not be reduced by the change because their benefits fall below the caps.

Bankruptcy Judge Charles E. Rendlen III said he would convert Bakers Footwear Group Inc. chapter 11 case to a liquidation under chapter 7 now that the shoe retailer has launched going-out-of-business sales at all of its stores, Dow Jones DBR Small Cap reported today. The 88-year-old chain last week won permission to hold liquidation sales at its remaining 56 stores after seeing its reorganization plan collapse and a last-ditch sale effort fall apart. The company said that it was necessary to hand over control of its estate because it was administratively insolvent. The company, which had 216 stores nationwide when it sought chapter 11, has not had committed funding for its operations since Dec. 21, according to court papers. It has been unable to pay for things such as inventory purchases and professional fees, it said.

Atari SA's U.S.-based video-game-making businesses filed for chapter protection with the intention of separating from the unprofitable French parent and seeking independent funding, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. New York-based Atari Inc., maker of video games “Pong” and “Asteroids,” as well as affiliates Atari Interactive Inc., Humongous Inc. and California U.S. Holdings Inc., asked to be jointly administered in filings today in bankruptcy court. Atari was founded in 1972 and became a pioneer in arcade and video games. Today it lags behind game-making giants such as Activision Blizzard Inc., the world’s largest by sales, and Electronic Arts Inc. The move to separate the U.S. business comes after the parent company Atari said in December it was strained for cash. The French parent, which has not made a profit since 1999 despite asset sales and restructuring, forecast a “significant loss” in 2012-2013, and said it would weigh all means of raising cash and had been talking to potential investors. According to its chapter 11 petition, Atari owes $10 million to $50 million to at least 200 creditors and possibly as many as 999. It reported assets of $1 million to $10 million.

Renewable-energy company Satcon Technology Corp. wants to get its bankruptcy sale process officially under way, though it has not yet lined up a lead bidder for its assets, Dow Jones DBR Small Cap reported today. The Boston-based company, which provides solar-power systems to large-scale commercial businesses, yesterday filed the rules it would like to govern its chapter 11 auction. It wants the contest for its assets to take place on Feb. 19 at the offices of law firm Greenberg Traurig LLP in Wilmington, Del., with a proposed sale hearing to follow on Feb. 21.

Eastman Kodak Co.'s proposed $525 million sale of its digital imaging patents to Intellectual Ventures and RPX Corp received approval from Bankruptcy Judge Alan Gropper on Friday, bringing the photography company a step closer to exiting chapter 11, Reuters reported on Friday. The price is a fraction of the more than $2 billion Kodak had hoped to fetch for the patents when it filed for bankruptcy in January 2012. However, it allows the company to proceed with a plan to secure $830 million in financing and exit bankruptcy in the first half of this year. Intellectual Ventures and RPX lead a consortium of some of the world's biggest technology companies, including Adobe Systems Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Fujifilm Holdings Corp. The deal, announced in December, allows for the licensing of patents, settlement of patent-related legal claims, and the assumption of a cross-licensing agreement between Kodak and Fuji.

A plan by Residential Capital LLC, the bankrupt mortgage lending unit of Ally Financial Inc., to pay up to $33.4 million in annual bonuses to about 3,000 of the company's 3,926 employees drew an objection from U.S. Trustee Tracy Hope Davis, Reuters reported on Friday. Davis said in court papers that the annual incentive plan could not be characterized as being part of ResCap's ordinary course of business since it entered bankruptcy protection with the intention of selling its servicing platform and loans. The plan includes senior executives other than the company's chief executive, president and chief capital markets officer. In August, a federal bankruptcy judge rejected the company's plan to pay incentive bonuses to 17 senior executives, saying that the payouts were aimed at retaining them, not to compensate for increased responsibilities or performance, as required by bankruptcy law. An amended bonus plan, based on more ambitious performance metrics, was approved in October.