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Quiznos is pushing off until May a key court hearing on its bankruptcy exit plan after unsecured creditors asked for more time to probe its restructuring strategy, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The sandwich chain labeled its chapter 11 proposal a pre-packaged plan, because the company filed for protection with support from key creditors, including senior lenders owed $444 million. Quiznos says that the chapter 11 plan itself, however, with $626 million in debt, is going to push a cramdown on unsecured creditors, forcing landlords, suppliers and other creditors to accept what it proposes to give them. Unsecured creditors, including suppliers, landlords and a franchisee, formed ranks recently in a bid to slow Quiznos's race to the bankruptcy exit. They negotiated an agreement from the company to postpone a chapter 11 plan confirmation hearing from April to May 12.

Overseas Shipholding Group Inc. won court permission to sign a deal with its lenders that would raise $300 million from a share sale as part of the company’s plan to exit bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Overseas would use the money raised by the sale to keep part of its fleet of tankers, which it uses to transport oil, refined products and natural gas. The New York-based company is set to return to court next month to seek permission from Bankruptcy Judge Peter Walsh to send its reorganization plan, which is built on the proposed share sale, to creditors for a vote. Lenders holding about 60 percent of the debt remaining on Overseas’ $1.5 billion credit facility agreed to guarantee that the company will raise $300 million when it offers new stock, according to yesterday’s filing in Wilmington, Delaware.

Speech-technology company DynaVox Inc. and two affiliates have filed for chapter 11 protection in a bid to put the brakes on a move by secured lenders, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The company is grappling with restructuring its assets and debts estimated at between $10 million and $50 million. A supplier of systems and software to help people with speech, language and learning challenges, DynaVox warned shareholders last year it was under pressure to pay off debts.

Coldwater Creek Inc., a women’s clothing retailer that hasn’t been profitable since 2007, is planning to liquidate its assets after a bankruptcy filing that may come as soon as today, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The filing would come five months after Coldwater said that it was exploring strategic alternatives, including a sale. Coldwater would follow Dots LLC and Loehmann’s Inc., two clothing chains that have liquidated in recent months amid sluggish consumer spending. Sales at Coldwater stores that have been open at least a year, considered a key gauge of retail performance, plunged 17 percent in the quarter ended Nov. 2.

James River Coal Co. filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after struggling with a steep drop in prices and demand for both thermal and steel-making coal, Reuters reported yesterday. The company also said that it would enter into a $110 million debtor-in-possession financing facility with several large financial funds. James River, which expects to continue its mining operations and customer shipments through the restructuring process, said that it would use the new funding to support its business on approval by the bankruptcy court.

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee's reorganization plan for exiting its bankruptcy is "morally repugnant," not in the best interest of its creditors and should be rejected by creditors and the court, a committee representing clergy sex abuse victims and other creditors said in a bankruptcy court filing on Friday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on Saturday. That objection, submitted in advance of an April 17 hearing on the plan's disclosure statement, takes issue with myriad assertions made by the archdiocese in the reorganization plan submitted to the court in February. And it telegraphs the committee's intention to continue to pursue certain assets, including $60 million the committee says was fraudulently transferred into a cemetery trust, proceeds from a $105 million capital campaign and the archdiocese's sprawling lakefront headquarters campus, known as the Cousins Center.

Genco Shipping & Trading Ltd. will cut its debt by more than $1 billion by giving control of the company to its lenders in a deal that requires the dry bulk shipping company to file for bankruptcy, Reuters reported on Friday. Lenders backing a $1.06 billion credit facility would convert their debt into about 81.1 percent of company's stock, according to a regulatory filing from Thursday. Investors who hold $125 million of Genco convertible debt would receive 8.4 percent of the company. The remaining equity would be allocated to those investors funding a $100 million rights offering, while management would also get a 1.8 percent stake in the company.

Brookstone Inc., the retailer of luxury gadgets including $4,600 massage chairs, won bankruptcy court approval of a financing package to help fund operations and pay off some debt as it pursues a sale, Bloomberg News reported on Saturday. Brookstone filed for bankruptcy on April 3 with a deal to sell its assets to Spencer Spirit Holdings Inc. The chain has struggled to adapt to an evolving retail landscape where online competitors dominate and consumers are cutting back on non-essentials. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin J. Carey on Friday granted the company interim approval to borrow about $91.3 million of $96.3 million in financing being provided by some of its noteholders. The company will seek approval of the remaining $5 million at an April 25 hearing.

Youth-oriented streetwear brand Ecko Unltd. sought chapter 11 protection on Wednesday citing the "fickle" tastes of its target audience and the economic downturn as prime causes of the company's waning sales, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Founded in 1993 by designer Marc Ecko and two partners, Ecko evolved from "just six T-shirts and a can of spray paint" into "a full scale global fashion and lifestyle company," according to a filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Trenton, N.J. Ecko plans to auction off its assets in chapter 11.

MF Global Inc., the defunct brokerage once led by Jon Corzine, will begin final distributions to fully satisfy $6.7 billion in claims from former customers, starting tomorrow and lasting several weeks, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. “Checks are going in the mail that will make all public customers of MF Global Inc. 100 percent whole,” trustee James Giddens said yesterday. The repayment will satisfy claims of more than 26,000 securities and commodities customers. MF Global Holdings Ltd., the brokerage’s parent company, filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 31, 2011, after a wrong-way $6.3 billion bet on bonds of some of Europe’s most indebted nations. More than $1.6 billion in customer funds that should have been segregated were missing. The company listed assets of $41 billion and debts of $39.7 billion.