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Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Inc., the U.S. grocery chain owned by Tesco Plc, canceled its proposed auction after receiving no offers to compete with a bid from an affiliate of billionaire Ron Burkle’s Yucaipa Cos., Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The company will seek bankruptcy court approval on Nov. 22 to sell virtually all of its assets to the affiliate of Los Angeles-based Yucaipa, according to court documents filed on Nov. 15. Under the proposed deal, a Tesco affiliate would lend the Yucaipa unit $120 million to help finance the acquisition, according to court papers. Tesco would get warrants to buy as much as 10 percent of the reorganized chain’s equity, while Fresh & Easy would get a 22.5 percent stake. Yucaipa has agreed to take over about 150 of the markets along with the production facility in Riverside, California, where the company produces meals under the Fresh & Easy brand. Fresh & Easy operates 167 stores in the western U.S.

U.S. golf retailer Edwin Watts Golf Shops LLC filed for chapter 11 protection today, Reuters reported. The retailer, owned by private equity firm Sun Capital Partners Inc., listed out estimated liabilities and assets of $100 million to $500 million. The Fort Walton Beach, Fla.-based company sells golf equipment, apparel, and accessories through its more than 88 domestic retail stores and also via its web portal. The case is Edwin Watts Golf Shops LLC, Case No. 13-12877, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware.

RadioShack Corp. has secured a financial boost from GE Capital on the cusp of the crucial holiday selling season, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The General Electric Co. unit will extend a loan of around $835 million secured by existing assets, including inventory, to refinance outstanding bank debt. The funds will free up cash for the electronics chain's overhaul as its losses mount. RadioShack had about $500 million of long-term debt outstanding at the end of June.

Tesco Plc’s Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Inc. filed for bankruptcy so it can sell itself at auction with an affiliate of billionaire Ron Burkle’s Yucaipa Cos. as the lead bidder, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Fresh & Easy yesterday listed debt of as much as $1 billion and assets of as much as $500 million in a court filing. Under the proposed deal, a Tesco affiliate would loan the Yucaipa affiliate $120 million to help fund the takeover. Tesco would get warrants to buy as much as 10 percent of the equity in the reorganized supermarket chain. Should Yucaipa win a proposed court-sanctioned auction, a Tesco unit would retain 22.5 percent of the equity in the reorganized chain.

J.C. Penney Co. moved to raise as much as $1 billion by selling stock, boosting its cushion of cash ahead of what could be a hard-fought holiday season, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Penney said yesterday that it would sell up to 96.6 million shares in a public offering underwritten by Goldman Sachs. The department store chain is seeing some improvement in sales but is still facing concerns from creditors, who worry that the retailer's road ahead is uncertain. Companies that finance clothing deliveries to Penney are making it more expensive for suppliers to do business with the retailer. Rosenthal & Rosenthal, a "factoring" company that pays suppliers up front then collects later from Penney, raised the surcharge it imposes for Penney suppliers to 2 percent from 1 percent and is now only financing 70-80 percent of the goods that are delivered. Previously, the New York-based firm had financed the full value of the goods.

Executives at Pro's Ranch Market have put together a bankruptcy exit plan for the struggling grocery chain, promising to repay some of the company's debts using future profits from its 11 locations across the Southwest, Dow Jones Newswires reported yesterday. Pro's Ranch Market officials said in court filings that they will either look for a new loan or rely on money from Provenzano family members who own the chain, which caters to Hispanic shoppers by selling imported food products from Mexico and Central America. That money, along with future store profits, would help pay off the company's suppliers and other unsecured creditors who are owed at least $19 million. Under the plan, the company would repay its biggest debt—a $48 million loan handled by Bank of America—an unspecified "discounted" amount within six months of its exit from bankruptcy protection. If the bank votes to reject the plan, it will get between $8 million and $10 million over a 10-year period.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said that the U.S. Federal Reserve’s rules for debit card transaction fees and processing will remain in place while the central bank appeals a decision throwing out the regulations, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. Both the Fed and retailers had asked the federal judge in Washington to keep the current rules in place pending the appeal. Merchants “vastly prefer the status quo” to the “unregulated ‘free for all’ which would likely subject merchants to interchange fees well in excess of the Fed’s current standard,” lawyers for retail interests said in court filings Aug. 28. The merchants’ filing was in support of the Fed’s Aug. 26 request that the rules be left in place pending the central bank’s appeal.

A court appointed expert said that merchants will be better off with a multibillion-dollar price-fixing settlement with Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. over swipe fees than they would be if they went to trial, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Prof. Alan O. Sykes of New York University Law found that U.S. merchants face “a substantial probability of failure” if they proceed with the case, according to a memorandum filed yesterday in Brooklyn, New York federal court. Sykes, who was asked by U.S. District Judge John Gleeson to weigh in on the pact, also found some concerns with legal releases and the possible impact of certain rule changes promised in the deal. “The expected returns to continued litigation are highly uncertain,” Sykes said in the memorandum. “Plaintiffs face a substantial probability of securing little or no relief at the conclusion of trial.”

Orchard Supply Hardware Stores Corp. is seeking court approval of a settlement the hardware and garden chain says will save it from costly legal battles with its key creditors, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The deal promises Orchard's lenders and unsecured creditors a cut of the proceeds from the company's $205 million sale to Lowe's Cos. or other assets, avoiding a courtroom showdown over the amount of money each creditor group is entitled to receive.

Furniture Brands International Inc., one of the nation's largest home furniture manufacturers, has tapped restructuring lawyers and advisers to deal with its debt load, The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. The advisers are examining several alternatives, one of which could be a chapter 11 restructuring, although the situation is still fluid. St. Louis-based Furniture Brands, which sells under the Broyhill, Lane, Drexel Heritage and Thomasville names, had sales of about $1 billion in 2012, roughly half of what the company brought in a decade ago. At the end of 2012, Furniture Brands employed 5,600 people in the U.S. and another 3,500 overseas. The company cumulatively lost more than $91 million in its last two fiscal years, and analysts are forecasting another loss in 2013. The company is working with Paul, Hastings, Janofsky and Walker LLP, investment bank Miller Buckfire & Co. and turnaround firm Alvarez & Marsal to address its debts and low cash flow.