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Flowers Foods to Buy Some Hostess Brands for 390 Million

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Flowers Foods Inc. on Friday said that it has agreed to buy Wonder and other well-known bread brands from Hostess Brands Inc. for $390 million, as part of the latter company's bankruptcy reorganization, Reuters reported on Friday. The Thomasville, Ga.-based company said that it agreed to pay $360 million for the Wonder, Butternut, Home Pride, Merita and Nature's Pride brands, as well as 20 bakeries and 38 depots. It also entered a second contract where it agreed to pay $30 million for the Beefsteak brand. Flowers already owns brands such as Cobblestone Mill, Nature's Own and Tastykake. It said it expects the purchases to add to earnings in 2013, and that it would finance them with cash on hand plus debt.

American Airlines Wants More Time to File Bankruptcy Plan

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American Airlines parent AMR Corp. asked a court on Friday for more time to file a restructuring plan as part of its exit from bankruptcy, Reuters reported. American wants to submit the plan on April 1, twenty days later than the current March 11 deadline, the company said in a court filing. It would be the fifth extension granted to the company since it filed for bankruptcy protection in November 2011. The case is AMR Corp., 11-15463, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York.

U.S. Trustee Objects to ResCaps Proposed Bonus Plan

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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.

Nortels Litigation Pits Bondholders Against Retirees

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Bondholders, suppliers, governments and former employees from around the globe hold $20 billion in claims based on different insolvency laws and are competing for Nortel's last remaining asset - $9 billion in cash, Reuters reported on Friday. Ontario Chief Justice Warren Winkler, who has spent the past few months analyzing proposals, begins a week of talks today intended to find common ground. Winkler has called the case "one of the most complex transnational legal proceedings in history." Failure of the mediation would mean years of litigation, with the possibility that parallel legal fights in different countries could reach inconsistent outcomes, according to Winkler, who was appointed to mediate by the U.S. and Canadian courts. John Penn, a bankruptcy attorney who is not involved in the case, said that the mediation is comparable to a football playoff between the New England Patriots, the Hamilton (Ontario) Tiger-Cats, Manchester United and Australia's Sydney Swans. "Each calls it 'football' but they all do something that's quite different," said Penn, of Haynes and Boone in Fort Worth, Texas. The complex disputes stem from Nortel's former might as a global telecom empire with a web of intercompany finances and a workforce that once stood at 93,000.

MF Global Creditors Propose Liquidation Plan

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Unsecured creditors of MF Global Holdings Ltd on Thursday proposed a liquidation plan that could pay the brokerage's former customers in full, Reuters reported yesterday. The ad hoc group, led by distressed debt investors Silver Point Capital, Knighthead Capital and Cyrus Capital Partners, filed the proposal in bankruptcy court saying that former traders who held accounts at the commodities broker could receive full payback, while some unsecured bondholders of the MF parent could recover as much as 42 percent of their claims. MF Global declared bankruptcy in October 2011 after its exposure to risky European sovereign debt spooked investors. The proposed liquidation plan comes weeks after the MF parent and two key affiliates settled billions of dollars in intercompany claims, providing a clearer picture of what each unit will have at its disposal to pay back creditors.

Judge Clears Shoe Retailer Bakers to Liquidate Its Remaining Stores

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Bakers Footwear Group Inc. won permission to liquidate its 56 remaining shoe stores, a ruling that essentially signifies the death of an 88-year-old chain that saw several attempts to stay in operation, Dow Jones DBR Small Cap reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Charles E. Rendlen III on Wednesday approved Bakers's request to launch a final round of going-out-of-business sales at locations spanning from New Jersey to California.

U.S. Objects to MSR Resort Bankruptcy Plan

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The U.S. government has objected to a bankruptcy reorganization plan that calls for the sale of MSR Resort hotel group to a Singapore sovereign wealth fund, saying that it is an attempt to dodge taxes, Reuters reported yesterday. The MSR Resort group's plan to sell itself to the Government of Singapore Investment Corp. creates tax liabilities of $331 million with no recourse for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to recover them, Preet Bharara, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in his objection filed on Wednesday. Bharara also objected to MSR seeking an injunction that bars the government from reviewing the tax consequences of the plan.

Sbarro Closer to Bankruptcy Exit

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Pizza chain Sbarro Inc. is one step closer to emerging from bankruptcy under the control of its first-lien lenders, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Shelley C. Chapman on Tuesday said that she would clear the company to distribute its reorganization plan to creditors for a vote. Judge Chapman's approval comes just a few days after Sbarro rolled out a few revisions to its plan, most notably $35 million in fresh capital lenders are now committing to funnel into the revamped company. Under the proposal Sbarro wants to use to guide its exit from chapter 11, the reorganized chain would have $110 million in new debt: $35 million in bankruptcy loans and $75 million in existing first-lien debt converted into a new term-loan facility.

American Medical Seeks to Retain Control of Chapter 11

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American Medical Technologies Inc. is seeking an extension of its exclusive right to file a bankruptcy-exit plan as the company works to resolve key disputes with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Internal Revenue Service, Dow Jones DBR Small Cap reported today. The company's exclusivity period is set to expire on Jan. 14, and the period during which it can solicit votes from creditors is set to expire on March 5. American Medical is seeking a 120-day extension, which would push its protected plan filing period to May 14 and its right to solicit votes to July 3.

Wisconsin-Based Milk Processor Golden Guernsey to Liquidate

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Private equity-backed milk processor Golden Guernsey Dairy LLC filed for bankruptcy and said that it will liquidate after it failed to cut operating costs, Reuters reported yesterday. The company, backed by Los Angeles-based firm OpenGate Capital LLC, filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy protection on Tuesday. OpenGate bought Wisconsin-based Guernsey Dairy from Dean Foods Co. in September 2011 to resolve anti-trust concerns about Dean Foods' large share of school milk supplies in the state. The private equity firm said that it increased sales by 20 percent after it bought Golden Guernsey from Dean Foods but was unable to reduce costs in a meaningful manner, given some of its legacy relationships. Golden Guernsey, an 83-year-old company, supplies milk and milk products to schools, grocery stores and retailers in Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota and Iowa.