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The nation's oldest cutlery manufacturer has filed for bankruptcy after 177 years of making knives and other kitchen tools, the Associated Press reported yesterday. Lamson & Goodnow Manufacturing Co. of Shelburne Falls, Mass., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this month and the business has also put its 18-acre factory complex up for sale. According to federal bankruptcy court in Springfield, the company filed for bankruptcy protection as a result of two multimillion dollar loans it could not repay. The company owes $1 million on a U.S. Small Business Administration loan and more than $2 million to the small business corporation in New York. Founded in 1837, the company has been owned by James Ross Anderson since 1998.

Michael Rose, president of Mokena-based Location Finders International Inc., asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Carol Doyle to dismiss the chapter 11 case he initiated last month, saying in a court filing that he and U.S. Bank N.A. have negotiated a settlement that permits him to maintain control of his businesses, Crain’s Chicago Business reported today. Rose has just $33.6 million in assets, but owes the Minneapolis-based lender U.S. Bank $68 million, the largest share of his total debt load of $170 million, according to a court filing. Under the settlement, Rose will pay U.S. Bank about $11 million in cash and property between now and January 2017. In addition, he has agreed to relinquish real estate that the bank is trying to seize through foreclosure.

Energy Future Holdings Corp. yesterday successfully fended off questions from creditors anxious to probe the financial health of a company division that is the target of deal talks, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The questions arose in a brewing court fight over whether Energy Future owes millions of dollars of premiums on $4 billion worth of debt attached to the division, which owns an 80 percent stake in the Texas transmission business, Oncor. At some point, that fight may turn on the question of whether the division is solvent. The answer to that question is in the works, as Energy Future engages in talks aimed at selling the Oncor stake, probably by way of a complex transaction worked into a chapter 11 restructuring plan.

The $6.5 million bid for Crumbs Bake Shop fronted by CNBC star Marcus Lemonis went unchallenged yesterday, setting the stage for the cupcake shop to emerge from bankruptcy on Aug. 26, the New York Post reported today. Crumbs’ new owner, Lemonis Fischer Acquisition Co., includes serial entrepreneur Fischer Enterprises in addition to the host of CNBC’s “The Profit.” The pair decided to make a run at the cupcake chain within days of its unexpectedly laying off all of its workers and closing all 48 shops in 10 states on July 7. By July 11, when Crumbs filed for bankruptcy, Lemonis Fischer had already stepped up with $1 million in financing to minimize damages to the chain throughout what promises to be a short stay in chapter 11. That financing, coupled with a $5.5 million secured loan previously made to Crumbs by Fischer, became the basis of a “stalking-horse bid” that the public was invited to beat by noon yesterday.

Freedom Industries Inc., the company behind a chemical spill that contaminated a significant swath of West Virginia's water supply, filed a creditor-payment plan that aims to start resolving the claims brought by those affected by the spill, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Freedom Industries in a Monday court filing provided an outline of its plan, on which creditors must eventually vote. That includes general unsecured creditors, who would receive nearly a dime for every dollar of the approximately $8.5 million they are owed. The proposal is buoyed by two recent settlements. The first is a $2.9 million compromise with attorneys representing local residents and businesses, with the money earmarked for health studies, water testing or other projects to benefit individuals as well as the businesses that were forced to close in the wake of the spill. The settlement would end about two dozen lawsuits filed against Freedom Industries. The other deal is one Freedom Industries struck in June with AIG Specialty Insurance Co., which provided insurance coverage to Freedom Industries before the Jan. 9 spill. The agreement calls for AIG to pay nearly $3 million to Freedom Industries, which has faced a number of claims in connection with the spill, from civil lawsuits to cleanup costs.

LightSquared lost $51.4 million in July, bringing Philip Falcone's wireless venture's total loss since its May 2012 bankruptcy filing to $1.51 billion, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. In a Friday filing with U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, the company again attributed the bulk of the losses to interest payments on its debt. The interest accounted for $39.4 million during July, and $903.8 million since the company's chapter 11 filing.

Bankrupt James River Coal Co., after repeatedly postponing an asset auction, chose a unit of Blackhawk Mining LLC as the lead bidder, with an opening offer of $50 million, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The Blackhawk unit will be the stalking-horse bidder at the auction to be held today in New York, according to court papers. A sale hearing to consider Blackhawk’s or other possible bids is scheduled for Aug. 20 in Richmond. Blackhawk Mining, based in Lexington, Kentucky, operates mines and coal-processing facilities. James River’s Hamden mining complexes, assets of the Logan & Kanawha Coal Co. and the Triad complex are up for sale, according to court filings. The buyer will also assume some liabilities. James River, based in Richmond, sought bankruptcy protection from creditors April 7, listing more than $800 million in debt and $1 billion in assets. Declining coal prices caused it to idle a dozen mines.

Revel AC Inc., the struggling Atlantic City, N.J.-based casino operator, is still pursuing potential sale offers as it plans to shut down operations by Sept. 2 to stanch its cash loss of about $2 million a week, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. “It is still our goal and hope that we will have a successful sale,” John K. Cunningham, a Revel lawyer, said today at a hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Camden, New Jersey. He said that the casino’s losses were reflected in offers, and Revel would have to be shut down to entice acceptable bids. Revel is “bleeding money every week,” Cunningham told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Gloria M. Burns. “The current bids we have don’t value Revel as an ongoing operation,” and the offers show bidders look at Revel’s losses like they would be “stepping into a black hole,” he added. Revel, which employs about 3,140 people, told workers in June, when it filed its second bankruptcy in two years, that it may be forced to close for good if it fails to attract a buyer.

Bank of America Corp. will hand over $26.4 million in mortgage loans to the bankruptcy liquidation trustee for defunct Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp., the Daily Business Review reported on Friday. Ocala, Fla.-based Taylor Bean and ex-CEO Lee Farkas perpetrated a $2.9 billion fraud, causing the collapse of Montgomery, Ala.-based Colonial Bank in the process. Taylor Bean was the nation's largest private mortgage origination company when it filed for bankruptcy protection in 2009 after being cited for manufacturing fake loans and failing to service 528,000 others. Farkas is serving a 30-year prison sentence. A settlement plan was approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Jerry A. Funk in Orlando in 2011, and liquidating trustee Neil F. Luria has been pursuing clawback lawsuits to reimburse creditors, including Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mac. The settlement with Bank of America calls for the trust to pay $10.3 million and receive the $26 million mortgage pool. The lawsuit against the bank claimed it failed to pay Taylor Bean $40 million under forward-purchasing agreements pending at the time of the bankruptcy filing.

Bankruptcy lawyers for Crumbs Bake Shop Inc. are preparing to hold an auction on Thursday to see who else has a sweet tooth for the chain, whose 49 cupcake stores closed suddenly on July 7, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. An investor group that includes Dippin’ Dots owner Fischer Enterprises and reality TV show host Marcus Lemonis plan to open the auction with a multimillion-dollar offer. The group’s approximately $6.5 million credit bid would forgive loans Fischer and Lemonis have extended to Crumbs, including a $1.1 million loan that is paying for the company’s bankruptcy.