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Phil Falcone's Harbinger Capital Partners, which controls bankrupt satellite company LightSquared, has asked a judge to reject a takeover effort by Dish Network Corp, saying that its $2.2 billion bid for a chunk of LightSquared's spectrum is a "Trojan horse,” Reuters reported on Friday. In a court filing on Thursday, Harbinger said that the bid undervalues LightSquared's assets, laying out its opposition to the takeover ahead of a court hearing scheduled for Jan. 9. In a separate filing, LightSquared itself also called for the rejection of the Dish plan, calling it a "short-sighted" liquidation that benefits only its proponents. The filings are the latest salvoes in a fierce battle for LightSquared's wireless spectrum. The company is fending off the Dish bid while it pursues a standalone restructuring under which it would receive $2.75 billion in fresh loans and at least $1.25 billion in equity investment from private equity firms Fortress and Melody Capital Advisors LLC, as well as JPMorgan Chase & Co and Harbinger. But that plan is contingent on LightSquared obtaining certain regulatory approvals, while Dish's competing takeover bid is not.

Nortel Networks Corp. tomorrow will ask a bankruptcy court to sign off on what it called a "milestone" in its long-running liquidation: a settlement with key creditors in a fight over billions of dollars, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. In December, Nortel's U.S. unit reached a deal to resolve a bitter battle over how much it owes its European creditors and U.K. retirees. Nortel would pay $75 million under the settlement, which would also allow the company to shake nearly $2 billion of claims filed in its chapter 11 case for a fraction of the amount asserted by representatives of French creditors, British pensioners and other European creditors, court papers say.

Philip Falcone’s LightSquared Inc. should be the one to benefit from regulatory approval of the company’s wireless spectrum, the bankrupt company said as part of an objection to competing plans that would reorganize it by selling assets, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. “All [of] LightSquared entities should be permitted to reorganize and enjoy the significant value realized when the FCC grants LightSquared’s pending applications,” the company said in a court filing yesterday. During the company’s Dec. 30 court hearing, its lawyers discussed the latest talks with the Federal Communications Commission behind closed doors in U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman’s chambers. LightSquared has a plan to reorganize as a standalone company, while an ad hoc group of its lenders seek to sell off its main wireless spectrum assets in an auction led by a $2.22 billion bid from an entity owned by Charlie Ergen, chairman of LightSquared’s rival Dish Network Corp.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2014-01-02/lightsquared-said-it-sho…

In related news, LightSquared said that it wants to extend the incentive bonus package for its top executives as the company eyes an end to its chapter 11 case, Dow Jones Newswires reported yesterday. LightSquared said in a court filing on Tuesday that it wants to alter the parts of the bonuses tied to when the company emerges from bankruptcy and receives regulatory approvals for its networks. The original $6 million proposal was approved in October 2012, but the parts of the bonuses tied to those events expired on Dec. 31. LightSquared wants to modify the plan so its top four executives get cash bonuses of 75 percent of their salary if Judge Shelley C. Chapman confirms a restructuring or approves a sale of the company by Feb. 15. After that, those executives — Chief Executive Doug Smith, Chief Financial Officer Marc Montagner, General Counsel Curtis Lu and regulatory executive Jeffrey Carlisle — would not receive anything.
http://www.nasdaq.com/article/lightsquared-seeks-to-extend-management-b…

Philip Falcone’s LightSquared Inc. will send a bankruptcy plan supported by Fortress Investment Group LLC (FIG), JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Melody Capital Advisors LLC to creditors to vote, according to LightSquared lawyer Matthew Barr, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The standalone plan will compete with two others, one of which calls for selling most of the satellite-broadband provder’s assets to an entity owned by Charlie Ergen, chairman of LightSquared rival Dish Network Corp. Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman yesterday allowed LightSquared to go forward with the new plan after a conference with parties in chambers.

LightSquared is proposing a new bankruptcy exit plan with financing from Fortress Investment Group and other backers, as the U.S. wireless communications company seeks to avoid a sale to highest bidder Dish Network Corp., Reuters reported yesterday. LightSquared would receive $2.75 billion in fresh loans and at least $1.25 billion in equity investment from private-equity firms Fortress and Melody Capital Advisors LLC, as well as JPMorgan Chase & Co and Harbinger Capital Partners, court documents filed on Tuesday show. The plan replaces one based on an auction of the company's assets earlier this year. LightSquared scrapped that sale after Dish emerged as the only qualified bidder, with a $2.2 billion offer and terms that LightSquared found unappealing.

The prospect of a game-changing alliance between Nortel Networks Corp.'s U.S. division and European creditors of the defunct telecommunications company has Canadian creditors worried, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Nortel U.S. and Nortel's European creditors, led by British pensioners, recently reached a partial peace over claims the Europeans had filed in the chapter 11 proceeding. The U.S. claims settlement pact includes an agreement to work toward presenting a common front in May, when Nortel's various national divisions are scheduled to fight over $7.5 billion raised in the company's liquidation. Until the agreement was reached on the U.S. claims, Nortel U.S. and the company's European creditor representatives were at odds over everything from how the cash fight should be decided — by arbitration or at trial — to how long it will take to attain finality — months or years. Now both sides say they will look for common ground and hope to hasten the day when Nortel will be able to hand out its billions to creditors around the world.

Philip Falcone’s LightSquared Inc. may get more than $2 billion in financing sponsored by Fortress Investment Group LLC that would allow him to avoid a sale to Charlie Ergen, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. Falcone has been fighting to keep control of LightSquared’s wireless spectrum assets, facing dwindling cash in bankruptcy and a $2.22 billion offer from an entity owned by Ergen, the chairman of Dish Network Corp. Yesterday, a group of lenders that includes an Ergen-owned fund said all other offers to pay for a reorganization had “vaporized.” JPMorgan Chase & Co. is in talks with lenders to lead $2 billion to $2.5 billion in financing sponsored by Fortress. Lenders would need to commit by Jan. 8, and a condition for closing is regulatory approval to use some of the company’s wireless spectrum.

Memory-storage company OCZ Technology Group has been cleared to move ahead with a bankruptcy auction of its assets, with Toshiba Corp. opening the bidding with an offer of $35 million, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Peter Walsh signed off on rules for the auction yesterday and set a mid-January hearing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., to review the results of the bidding.

Philip Falcone’s LightSquared Inc., the bankrupt wireless-spectrum company, said that it won’t hold a planned auction for its One Dot Six assets and is instead “pursuing and negotiating an alternative transaction,” Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The auction, originally scheduled for yesterday, was canceled by a special committee of LightSquared’s board, according to a court filing. LightSquared’s main spectrum assets were to be sold separately and had attracted a $2.2 billion bid from a unit of Charlie Ergen’s Dish Network Corp. U.S. Bank NA and Mast Capital Management LLC, a Boston-based investment adviser, had planned to start the One Dot Six auction with a bid equal to what company owes them.

A private-equity firm backed out of a deal to acquire LightSquared Inc., the telecommunications firm in bankruptcy proceedings, amid uncertainty over when federal regulators would clear the way for the company to build out its wireless network, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Centerbridge Partners LP abandoned the deal "for economic and noneconomic reasons," a LightSquared lawyer said yesterday during a bankruptcy court hearing. Centerbridge worried that LightSquared would burn hefty amounts of cash while waiting for approval from regulators, including those at the Federal Communications Commission, to pursue a so-called spectrum swap that would allow the company to build out its network. With no assurances that a decision from the agency would come soon, Centerbridge decided against investing money in LightSquared.