A U.S. unit of China’s Suntech Power Holdings Corp., once the world’s largest solar-panel maker, followed its parent in seeking bankruptcy protection from creditors after increased competition pushed down prices, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. San Francisco-based Suntech America Inc., an affiliate of Wuxi, China-based Suntech Power, today listed more than $100 million each in assets and debt in chapter 11 filings in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware. Suntech Power, following creditor demands, filed for chapter 15 protection last February in Manhattan. U.S. bondholders moved to put the company into bankruptcy on their own with an involuntary bankruptcy liquidation under chapter 7 after it defaulted on about $541 million of their debt.
The Rehabilitation Center of St. Petersburg nursing home has emerged from bankruptcy — despite protests from Medicare officials — after a bankruptcy judge agreed it fixed record-keeping and patient care problems, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The Florida facility told a bankruptcy judge that it has repaid all of its debts and plans to continue caring for its roughly 110 patients after emerging from chapter 11 protection on Friday. The nursing home filed for bankruptcy on Aug. 15, preventing Medicare officials from halting payments for the facility's low-income patients after finding "rampant, serious problems" at the facility last year.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. has agreed in principle to settle class action litigation arising from Bear Stearns' sale of $17.58 billion of mortgage securities that proved defective during the recent U.S. housing and financial crises, Reuters reported on Friday. The largest U.S. bank, which bought Bear in 2008, will pay roughly $500 million to investors led by a group of pension funds. The accord, which requires court approval, was disclosed in a Thursday night filing with the U.S. District Court in Manhattan. It is separate from JPMorgan's $13 billion settlement with regulators in November 2013 over mortgage securities sales.
A New York architecture and interior-design firm with roots dating back more than a century has filed for chapter 11 protection, citing its inability to collect more than $2 million from an assignment in Russia, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Unlike many companies that go into bankruptcy, Swanke Hayden Connell doesn’t have any major bank loans or other secured debt. Instead, the firm says in court filings that a shortage of cash and its inability to pay its bills led to the bankruptcy. Over the years, Swanke Hayden has worked on a number of well-known projects in New York and elsewhere, including the Trump Tower, a 1980s facelift of the Statue of Liberty, and the recent rehabilitation of Central Park restaurant Tavern on the Green. In recent years, Swanke Hayden has taken on several projects in Russia, including a 70-story mixed-use tower in Moscow and a planned mega-complex in downtown Moscow. Swanke Hayden says in filings that one of its Russia clients hasn’t paid $2.3 million due to the firm because it claims “it has suffered damages as a result of the debtor’s alleged delays and omissions.”
The trustee in the Golden Guernsey Dairy bankruptcy case has filed lawsuits in federal court seeking to recover about $3.6 million that the company paid to distributors and other businesses, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported today. Trustee Charles Stanziale took the actions last week against 20 of Golden Guernsey's customers, suppliers and milk haulers. He's seeking anywhere from $24,000 to $911,507 from the individual defendants, according to the filings. Waukesha-based Golden Guernsey closed Jan. 5, 2013, after more than 80 years in business. The sudden shutdown of the milk-bottling and dairy processing plant left more than 100 people out of work. The company filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation shortly after the plant closing.
Victims of the Lac-Megantic oil-by-rail disaster that killed 47 people in the Canadian province of Quebec in 2013 agreed to a nearly $200 million settlement with some of the firms involved, including the insolvent rail operator at the center of the tragedy, Reuters reported on Saturday. Montreal Maine and Atlantic, along with its insurers, founder Edward Burkhardt, and various other companies, will pay into the settlement fund, which will be distributed to the victims of the train derailment and explosion, according to lawyer Peter Flowers of Meyers & Flowers. A draft plan of the arrangement was filed in the Quebec Superior Court on Friday as part of MMA's bankruptcy proceedings in Canada and a similar plan will also be filed in a U.S. court. The settlement is subject to approval by the courts.
Junior creditors of Caesars Entertainment Corp. moved to force the main operating unit into bankruptcy in an attempt to block a plan to protect senior lenders at their expense, after contentious wrangling over the casino company’s future, Bloomberg News reported today. The involuntary chapter 11 filing today by Appaloosa Investment LP and other junior lenders in Delaware pre-empts Caesars’ own effort to put the unit under bankruptcy court protection and threatens to scuttle a deal between the company and senior creditors. Appaloosa asked the court to appoint an examiner to investigate claims that insiders “plundered” the unit, paying themselves hundreds of millions of dollars while moving assets out of the junior creditors’ reach. The filing by Appaloosa and other holders of second-priority senior secured notes in the unit follows months of negotiation and litigation between Las Vegas-bases Caesars and its creditors. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2015-01-12/appaloosa-files-to-put-c…
In related news, bondholders of Caesars Entertainment Corp. will continue their fraud lawsuit against the casino company controlled by Apollo Global Management LLC (APO) even after its operating unit’s planned bankruptcy filing around Jan. 15, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. Caesars was asking the judge to toss the lawsuit, saying that bankrupt companies are automatically protected from litigation. The bondholders, who accused Caesars and its directors from Apollo of “looting” assets from the insolvent unit that owes them money, said their claims against those parties aren’t affected by the rule. The Las Vegas-based company has made agreements with a few lenders to try to use bankruptcy court to cut about $10 billion of debt from the money-losing unit that runs the casinos by offering them fees and special payments, filings show. Those who sign up must agree to drop out of lawsuits, Caesars says in regulatory filings. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2015-01-09/caesars-bondholders-to-c…
Body Central is closing its chain of 265 clothing stores Sunday and is terminating 2,500 employees, the company said on Friday, marking the latest blow to the women's retail sector, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The Jacksonville, Fla.-based company will liquidate through a state-court procedure called an "assignment for the benefit of creditors," which puts the company into the hands of an adviser who will work to pay off its debts. The company had hoped to restructure through a chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding, according to its bankruptcy lawyer, Gardner Davis, but switched course "when the financing didn't materialize."
A judge on Wednesday said U.S. Coal Corp. could put half the company's eastern Kentucky coal operations up for sale at an auction next month, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Tracey Wise approved the request, which allows U.S. coal to sell its Central Appalachia division at a Feb. 20 auction. The company has said that the division, with 24.4 million tons of coal reserves, is expected to lose money as mining costs increase and the coal-market weakens.
Caesars Entertainment Corp. won more support for a plan to put its biggest unit into bankruptcy as soon as next week after a bondholder group that’s already on board with the restructuring bought $500 million of debt from BlackRock Inc., Bloomberg News reported today. Caesars, owned by Apollo Global Management LLC and TPG Capital, has been negotiating with creditors for four months on a plan to reorganize Caesars Entertainment Operating Co., the subsidiary that owns most of its casinos. Its proposal would restructure $18.4 billion of debt by putting the unit into bankruptcy as soon as Jan. 15 and turning it into a real estate investment trust.
