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Phones 4u Ltd.’s administrator said that it will close 362 stores and cut almost 1,700 jobs as the failed U.K. mobile-phone chain sells off its assets to pay bondholders and salaries, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, which was appointed administrator last week, said the sale of an additional 198 shops and 160 concessions to former carrier partners EE Ltd., Vodafone Group Plc and retailer Dixons Carphone Plc has been approved by the courts, in a statement yesterday. The buyers will take on about 2,000 staff members.

LightSquared blew through $81.4 million in August, and Philip Falcone's wireless venture has now lost $1.6 billion since it filed for bankruptcy in May 2012, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The loss was $30 million more than the company spent in July, mostly attributed to a reuse fee it had to pay on its wireless spectrum, and a higher-than-usual charge for depreciation, depletion and amortization, according to a monthly operating report filed on Tuesday in bankruptcy court. Once again, LightSquared's biggest expense was interest paid on its debt. These payments totaled $39.3 million in August. The interest payments, mostly to the holders of LightSquared's bank debt, now stand at $943.2 million since the company filed for bankruptcy.

TelexFree LLC’s bankruptcy advisers will forgo more than $1 million in fees they charged during the short time they worked for the company, which has since been accused of operating a massive pyramid scheme, the Wall Street Journal reported today. To head off objections from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, one of the many that have sued over the alleged fraud, attorneys at Greenberg Traurig and turnaround advisers at Alvarez & Marsal will dramatically slash the amount they charged TelexFree in the early days of its chapter 11 case. Court papers show that Greenberg will cut its request for $969,000 in fees to just $320,000, while its requested expenses of about $76,000 will remain the same. A&M’s roughly $876,000 in fees and expenses, meanwhile, will be cut to $435,000. In return for these agreed-to reductions — which together total $1.09 million — TelexFree’s court-appointed trustee and the SEC won’t object as the firms seek bankruptcy court approval for the fees. The SEC will also ask a district judge to lift the order freezing TelexFree’s assets so the firms can collect their fees.

Philip Falcone's Harbinger Capital Partners filed a new restructuring proposal for the smaller pool of LightSquared 's assets, a plan that includes financing from JPMorgan Chase & Co., Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. In a Thursday court filing, Harbinger offered more specific details on a proposal made last month. J.P. Morgan will provide $280 million in bankruptcy financing, with Harbinger investing $180 million.

LightSquared lost $51.4 million in July, bringing Philip Falcone's wireless venture's total loss since its May 2012 bankruptcy filing to $1.51 billion, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. In a Friday filing with U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, the company again attributed the bulk of the losses to interest payments on its debt. The interest accounted for $39.4 million during July, and $903.8 million since the company's chapter 11 filing.

A U.S. bankruptcy judge has called a temporary truce in a fight between Nortel Networks Corp.’s U.S. division and the Canadian parent company over a $1 billion settlement with bondholders, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Judge Kevin Gross pushed off until October a planned September showdown over the settlement, which has to do with how much interest is owing on some $4 billion in bond debt issued by the former Canadian technology icon. The date has not been settled. However, whatever date is chosen, the judge wants the combatants in his chambers the evening before where they will be subjected to “a little bit of pressure.”

Philip Falcone’s LightSquared Inc., the bankrupt wireless company, is again the subject of competing plans over how to reorganize its business, with a potential hearing in October to confirm a final plan, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman said yesterday that she would consider a date around Oct. 20 to weigh arguments over how to reorganize the company, which previously narrowed three plans down to one, only to see it fail to win court approval. Judge Chapman said that she may have to “pick between or among two or three confirmable plans” after Falcone’s investment firm, Harbinger Capital Partners LLC, filed a new plan today, four days after LightSquared filed its own. Mast Capital Management LLC has said that it may put forth its own proposal, which would split up the company and separately reorganize debt at the “Inc.” and “LP” divisions, which have different lenders and own different rights to wireless spectrum.

NII Holdings Inc., the mobile-phone carrier that’s been losing subscribers in Latin America, said it will probably file for chapter 11 protection because it can’t fulfill financial obligations, Bloomberg News reported today. The company’s financial performance, combined with the inability to meet its borrowing terms, means NII is likely to file for bankruptcy, according to a statement yesterday. NII, which offers Nextel mobile-phone service and has units in Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Argentina, has been losing customers as America Movil SAB and Telefonica SA offer faster download speeds for smartphones. Revenue at NII slumped 23 percent in the second quarter, and it reported a net loss of 77,000 subscribers in the period, according to the statement. Shares of the Reston, Va.-based company dropped as much as 62 percent to 25 cents in extended trading. They had plunged 90 percent in the past year through the close of regular trading yesterday.

The judge overseeing Nortel Networks Inc.’s bankruptcy said he may pressure creditors fighting over $7 billion to reach a deal in a closed-door meeting, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross told U.S. bondholders and a monitor for Nortel’s Canadian parent in a court hearing on Friday that he wanted to meet with them for several hours and proposed an October date. Gross said that the meeting in his chambers won’t be a formal mediation session. “I am going to provide some direction and perhaps some pressure,” the judge told lawyers. The monitor for the bankrupt parent company and creditors in Canada and the U.K. have been fighting with U.S. bondholders and the bankrupt U.S. unit over how to split $7 billion in cash raised as Nortel liquidated its assets since filing bankruptcy in 2009. Judge Gross said that the meeting would be the night before a still unscheduled court fight between the bondholders and the Canadian monitor over a proposal to pay the bondholders as much as $1 billion in interest.

Wireless venture LightSquared yesterday overhauled its reorganization plan, and the new proposal appears to spell the end of longtime backer Philip Falcone's ownership of the wireless venture, the Wall Street Journal reported today. In the plan, LightSquared didn't make any references to a prior $3.05 billion restructuring proposal it had touted, which would have given 74 percent of the company to Cerberus Capital Management, Fortress Investment Group LLC and JPMorgan Chase & Co. in exchange for new money. Under the proposal filed yesterday, Dish Network Corp.'s Charlie Ergen, LightSquared's largest secured lender, would receive debt and nonvoting shares on account of his $900 million claim if he votes to accept the proposal. A group of investors holding LightSquared's bank debt would get the company's voting shares, although others could buy that equity from them at an auction. The plan calls for $500 million in new loans backstopped by those bank-debt holders. The company is scheduled to appear in bankruptcy court Monday afternoon.