Global Naps Inc. sought chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Tuesday, years after being placed into a receivership to satisfy a court loss to Verizon New England Inc., Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Bankruptcy court papers estimate assets of $10 million to $50 million and debts of $50 million to $100 million for the company, which was established as a competitive local exchange carrier. A federal appeals court ruling from last year involved a decade-plus of litigation between Global Naps and Verizon New England, which is listed in bankruptcy court papers as the top-ranking creditor, owed nearly $36 million.
GT Advanced Technologies Inc. asked for bankruptcy court permission to shut down its synthetic-sapphire operations, citing terms of a contract with Apple Inc. that it called “oppressive” and “burdensome,” Bloomberg News reported on Friday. GT Advanced, based in Merrimack, N.H., filed for bankruptcy last week, less than a year after announcing an agreement to supply sapphire to Apple. The substance is used to make screens on mobile devices more durable. The company told the court on Friday that it was going through cash too fast and must halt operations in Mesa, Arizona, and Salem, Massachusetts, by Dec. 31, at a cost of 890 jobs.
LightSquared wants its bankruptcy judge to halt Philip Falcone's lawsuits against the global positioning systems industry and the U.S. government until after LightSquared is out of bankruptcy, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. In a bankruptcy court filing on Wednesday, LightSquared said that the bankruptcy court has the power to stop these suits filed by Falcone's Harbinger Capital Partners, which currently controls LightSquared's equity. The money Harbinger is going after, LightSquared said, is actually money that could also belong to the LightSquared estate.
GT Advanced Technologies Inc. yesterday revealed that it intends to wind down sapphire production, cutting short its once-promising bid to supply the scratch-resistant material for Apple Inc's iPhones and other mobile devices, Reuters reported today. Scant information has emerged since GT Advanced filed unexpectedly for bankruptcy on Monday, wiping out most of its market value and triggering speculation as to what may have soured its Apple relationship and torpedoed its prospects. At the first public hearing since Monday's filing, lawyers for GT Advanced argued that it could not reveal why it sought bankruptcy and asked a court to keep crucial documents sealed, a highly unusual move that may keep investors in the dark for now about its financial implosion. A lawyer for the company said a confidentiality agreement prevented it from revealing its chapter 11 reorganization plan. Apple, which zealously guards the secrecy of its product pipeline, has been known in general to place strict confidentiality requirements on its many suppliers.
Apple Inc. supplier GT Advanced Technologies Inc. asked a U.S. bankruptcy court to keep under seal some key documents relating to a third-party, saying this would allow it to avoid paying damages under confidentiality agreements, Reuters reported yesterday. GT Advanced did not disclose the identity of the third-party or the nature of the potential contract violations. In a filing today with the U.S. bankruptcy court in New Hampshire, the company also requested a private hearing to deal with its request. The first hearing of GT Advanced's chapter 11 bankruptcy is scheduled for today at 10 a.m. ET. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/09/gt-advanced-bankruptcy-hearin…
In related news, Apple Inc. said yesterday that it was surprised by supplier GT Advanced Technologies Inc.’s bankruptcy filing this week, and is now considering its next steps, Reuters reported yesterday. GT Advanced, slated to supply scratch-resistant sapphire displays from a new Arizona factory Apple is helping bankroll, filed for bankruptcy on Monday but has offered little explanation as to why. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/08/apple-gt-advanced-tech-idUSL2…
GT Advanced Technologies Inc., Apple Inc.’s partner in a sapphire glass plant in Arizona, will hold its first chapter 11 bankruptcy court hearing on Thursday at 10 a.m. ET, Reuters reported yesterday. Investors are eagerly anticipating the hearing, at which GT has said that it will explain the events that led to Monday's surprise bankruptcy filing, which sparked a 90 percent drop in the company's stock.
Creditors of bankrupt wireless company LightSquared and the company's owner, Harbinger Capital Partners, will once again try to reach a mediated restructuring deal after a judge raised the prospect of converting the case to a chapter 7 liquidation, Reuters reported yesterday. With a deadline for confirming a plan just weeks away, Harbinger and two creditors, MAST Capital and JP Morgan, had crafted a plan that would carve out and hand over certain spectrum assets to creditors. Lenders who have collateral claims on LightSquared's operating assets objected, arguing the plan could derail the process for getting regulatory approval for LightSquared's spectrum.
Sweden's Ericsson is preparing to take over Massachusetts-based Ambient Corp., which struggled to sell its "smart grid" technology to power companies, after a bankruptcy judge approved Ericsson's $7.5 million purchase offer last week, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross approved the offer, which came from an Ericsson affiliate, after looking it over at a court hearing on Friday. Ambient filed for bankruptcy on July 28, saying that the company has had a hard time finding buyers for its devices that plug into a utility's power grid to help the utility communicate with electricity users. The largest customer for its data-collection devices has been Duke Energy Corp.
As Washington, D.C., and Wall Street sound early alarms on a potential tech bubble, a Morning Consult poll shows those living on the West Coast, the home of Silicon Valley, are the most confident that the historic spending is happening on solid ground. Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen warned in July that some tech start-ups were potentially overvalued. Earlier this month, prominent venture capitalist Bill Gurley and some other top investors agreed the tech industry was nearing a turning point. But when asked if conditions were better, worse or the same when compared to the 2000 tech bubble, those who are most likely to be impacted by a bubble popping are also the most confident about the current market. People making over $100,000 said that things are better now at a rate nearly 20 percent higher than the entire sample. People living in the Pacific region were even more confident, saying things are better now at a rate nearly 30 percent higher than the sample. Morning Consult polling also shows that concern over tech sector inflation is seeping into the public consciousness. Sixty-three percent said that they believed conditions in the tech sector are the same or worse than they were during the dotcom bust, versus only 37 percent who said that conditions are better today. But many experts say that any effects of a tech bubble bursting now would be isolated.
Nortel Networks Corp. bondholders and pensioners made their final pleas to judges in Canada and the U.S. about how to divide more than $7 billion in cash the company raised by liquidating assets, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. U.S. bondholders of the defunct phone maker urged the two judges to focus on legal precedents, regardless of the effect on 56,000 Nortel retirees in Canada and the U.K. The pensioners, who are fighting each other as well as the bondholders, asked the judges to impose a fair division that avoids the “extreme outcome” of paying 11 percent on some retiree claims and more than 100 percent to some U.S. investors. With their courtrooms linked by video, Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross in Wilmington, Delaware, and Frank Newbould, a judge on the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto held a three-day joint hearing. They will rule separately on how to divide the money. Judges Gross and Newbould asked the lawyers whether any parties would object if the judges decide to talk to each other about the case. Under Canadian and U.S. law, they are required to reach independent decisions.
