With growing fears of recession and job losses related to the COVID-19 coronavirus crisis, many Americans may find themselves in a devastating financial position.

But for those unlucky enough to face bankruptcy, a homeownership dream may not be over.

According to a new study from LendingTree, more than 70% of those that file for bankruptcy are mortgage-eligible again within 5 years.

With more than half of those who filed for bankruptcy one year before visiting LendingTree having credit scores of 640 and higher, 17% had a score of 680 or higher; 5% had scores of 700 or higher; and 1.5% had a score of at least 740.

Higher costsHowever, these borrowers will typically face higher APRs for mortgages than other borrower, with the exception of those with scores above 760 who were typically offered rates lower than those without bankruptcy on their credit file.

Mortgage borrowers two years out from bankruptcy can expect to pay almost $26,000 more over the life of their mortgage than people without a bankruptcy on their records.

Even after five years, they can expect to pay more than $9,600.

Follow this link:

Market Update News: Bankruptcy isn't the end of the homeownership drea - Mortgage Professional America

Pier 1 Imports said it has temporarily laid off 65% of its headquarters employees in Fort Worth and some distribution center employees until further notice. The company didnt say how many employees that represented, but the figure is in the hundreds. Last year, the company still had more than 800 employees in Fort Worth.

The Fort Worth-based home furnishings retailer has been operating in Chapter 11 bankruptcy since Feb. 17, and CEO and chief financial officer Robert Riesbeck said Tuesday that the severe staff cuts are an attempt to preserve funds.

For the employees who remain, wages are being reduced by 20%. For executive vice presidents and above, pay cuts are 50%. Senior vice presidents salaries are being cut 30%.

All of its 1,000 stores are closed. Half of those stores were in the process of closing permanently before the coronavirus pandemic forced the closing of the rest of its stores Sunday. The retailer said its still processing orders online. Its board members also are taking a 50% pay cut.

A hearing is scheduled for Thursday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Richmond, Va., to consider alternatives, according to a court motion.

In light of these circumstances, the company, its lenders and the unsecured creditors are working constructively to discern the best path forward for these chapter 11 cases, the filing said. These parties remain in discussion regarding how to best maximize the value of the company at this point and how to proceed with the currently scheduled auction and the other case milestones.

Pier 1 had said previously that it had interested bidders. The bid deadline was Monday, and the court had set March 31 as the auction date with a sale and confirmation hearing on April 23.

Now that coronavirus has temporarily shut down much of the retail industry, analysts have included Pier 1 on lists of retail companies that are likely casualties.

Like many retailers that have temporarily closed stores in response to COVID-19, we are making difficult decisions that are necessary to preserve value in our business for the long-term benefit of our associates, customers and other stakeholders, Riesbeck said in a statement. We are incredibly grateful to our associates for their commitment to our customers and our company, and we will continue to take appropriate actions to position Pier 1 for the future.

Twitter: @MariaHalkias

Looking for more retail coverage? Click here to read all retail news and updates. Click here to subscribe to D-FW Retail and more newsletters from The Dallas Morning News.

Read the rest here:

Pier 1 Imports lays off 65% of its staff at Fort Worth headquarters - The Dallas Morning News

Pacific Gas & Electric reached an agreement Friday with Gov. Gavin Newsom of California in which it pledged billions of dollars to help wildfire victims, improve safety and make other changes, resolving the biggest obstacles to the companys plan to come out of bankruptcy.

As part of the deal, PG&E, which filed for bankruptcy protection last year after amassing tens of billions of dollars in debt related to wildfires caused by its equipment, will not pay dividends to shareholders for three years. The agreement should allow the utility to exit bankruptcy by June 30, a state-mandated deadline for it to take part in a fund that will help utilities pay claims from future wildfires.

A federal judge still needs to approve the companys bankruptcy plan, but the agreement with Mr. Newsom makes the approval much more likely.

The agreement comes as Mr. Newsom continues to manage the escalating coronavirus outbreak that led him on Thursday to order Californians to stay at home. Though the crisis has consumed much of the governors time, his office said the timing of the agreement was dictated by the need to meet the June 30 deadline, ahead of the next wildfire season.

This is the end of business as usual for PG&E, Mr. Newsom said in a statement. Through Californias unprecedented intervention in the bankruptcy, we secured a totally transformed board and leadership structure for the company, real accountability tools to ensure safety and reliability and billions more in contributions from shareholders to ensure safety upgrades are achieved.

Mr. Newsoms office said PG&E must receive approval of its plan by state regulators and the bankruptcy judge by June 30 and have its financing in place by Sept. 30. Failure to do so will set off the sale of the company.

In addition, the agreement requires half of the companys new board to include California residents. An independent executive recruiting firm would select the new directors with Mr. Newsoms approval.

Even with the added provisions secured by the governor, half of the companys $13.5 billion payment to wildfire victims will be in the form of PG&E stock under a previously reached agreement. Some victims have grown increasingly wary of that deal because PG&Es stock, like the S&P 500 index, has tumbled in recent weeks. PG&E shares closed at $7.22 on Friday, down from nearly $18 in mid-February.

Mr. Newsoms office said it would not intervene in the agreement victims reached with the utility.

Suspending PG&Es dividend for three years will save about $4 billion, according to calculations by the governors office, strengthening PG&Es balance sheet.

But in other areas, Mr. Newsom gained more modest concessions. Under the agreement, PG&E Corporation, the holding company that owns the utility, will still issue new debt, something that could put it at financial risk. The interest on that debt would have to be paid with profits from the Pacific Gas & Electric Company, the entity that provides customers with gas and power. PG&E and its shareholders had originally wanted the holding company to issue $7 billion in debt, but the agreement with the governor calls for $4.75 billion.

PG&E is also going ahead with a financing arrangement that involves using a tax windfall from its wildfire-related losses to back its new debt.

In a letter in December, Mr. Newsom criticized PG&Es intention to issue debt at the holding company and use its tax breaks, saying such steps would leave the company with limited tools to finance itself when it needs to access capital to make billions of dollars of safety investments.

PG&E is still set to emerge from bankruptcy with far more debt than it had before it sought bankruptcy protection.

Our plan will position the company to make necessary safety and wildfire mitigation investments in the coming years, partner with the state in achieving its bold climate goals, and, importantly, provide protection to California if the Chapter 11 process is not concluded in a timely manner, Bill Johnson, chief executive of PG&E Corporation, said in a statement.

Continue reading here:

PG&E Reaches Agreement With Governor, Clearing Bankruptcy Hurdle - The New York Times

Updated: May 25, 2018:

JD Supra is a legal publishing service that connects experts and their content with broader audiences of professionals, journalists and associations.

This Privacy Policy describes how JD Supra, LLC ("JD Supra" or "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses and shares personal data collected from visitors to our website (located at http://www.jdsupra.com) (our "Website") who view only publicly-available content as well as subscribers to our services (such as our email digests or author tools)(our "Services"). By using our Website and registering for one of our Services, you are agreeing to the terms of this Privacy Policy.

Please note that if you subscribe to one of our Services, you can make choices about how we collect, use and share your information through our Privacy Center under the "My Account" dashboard (available if you are logged into your JD Supra account).

Registration Information. When you register with JD Supra for our Website and Services, either as an author or as a subscriber, you will be asked to provide identifying information to create your JD Supra account ("Registration Data"), such as your:

Other Information: We also collect other information you may voluntarily provide. This may include content you provide for publication. We may also receive your communications with others through our Website and Services (such as contacting an author through our Website) or communications directly with us (such as through email, feedback or other forms or social media). If you are a subscribed user, we will also collect your user preferences, such as the types of articles you would like to read.

Information from third parties (such as, from your employer or LinkedIn): We may also receive information about you from third party sources. For example, your employer may provide your information to us, such as in connection with an article submitted by your employer for publication. If you choose to use LinkedIn to subscribe to our Website and Services, we also collect information related to your LinkedIn account and profile.

Your interactions with our Website and Services: As is true of most websites, we gather certain information automatically. This information includes IP addresses, browser type, Internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp and clickstream data. We use this information to analyze trends, to administer the Website and our Services, to improve the content and performance of our Website and Services, and to track users' movements around the site. We may also link this automatically-collected data to personal information, for example, to inform authors about who has read their articles. Some of this data is collected through information sent by your web browser. We also use cookies and other tracking technologies to collect this information. To learn more about cookies and other tracking technologies that JD Supra may use on our Website and Services please see our "Cookies Guide" page.

We use the information and data we collect principally in order to provide our Website and Services. More specifically, we may use your personal information to:

JD Supra takes reasonable and appropriate precautions to insure that user information is protected from loss, misuse and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and destruction. We restrict access to user information to those individuals who reasonably need access to perform their job functions, such as our third party email service, customer service personnel and technical staff. You should keep in mind that no Internet transmission is ever 100% secure or error-free. Where you use log-in credentials (usernames, passwords) on our Website, please remember that it is your responsibility to safeguard them. If you believe that your log-in credentials have been compromised, please contact us at privacy@jdsupra.com.

Our Website and Services are not directed at children under the age of 16 and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 16 through our Website and/or Services. If you have reason to believe that a child under the age of 16 has provided personal information to us, please contact us, and we will endeavor to delete that information from our databases.

Our Website and Services may contain links to other websites. The operators of such other websites may collect information about you, including through cookies or other technologies. If you are using our Website or Services and click a link to another site, you will leave our Website and this Policy will not apply to your use of and activity on those other sites. We encourage you to read the legal notices posted on those sites, including their privacy policies. We are not responsible for the data collection and use practices of such other sites. This Policy applies solely to the information collected in connection with your use of our Website and Services and does not apply to any practices conducted offline or in connection with any other websites.

JD Supra's principal place of business is in the United States. By subscribing to our website, you expressly consent to your information being processed in the United States.

You can make a request to exercise any of these rights by emailing us at privacy@jdsupra.com or by writing to us at:

You can also manage your profile and subscriptions through our Privacy Center under the "My Account" dashboard.

We will make all practical efforts to respect your wishes. There may be times, however, where we are not able to fulfill your request, for example, if applicable law prohibits our compliance. Please note that JD Supra does not use "automatic decision making" or "profiling" as those terms are defined in the GDPR.

Pursuant to Section 1798.83 of the California Civil Code, our customers who are California residents have the right to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes.

You can make a request for this information by emailing us at privacy@jdsupra.com or by writing to us at:

Some browsers have incorporated a Do Not Track (DNT) feature. These features, when turned on, send a signal that you prefer that the website you are visiting not collect and use data regarding your online searching and browsing activities. As there is not yet a common understanding on how to interpret the DNT signal, we currently do not respond to DNT signals on our site.

For non-EU/Swiss residents, if you would like to know what personal information we have about you, you can send an e-mail to privacy@jdsupra.com. We will be in contact with you (by mail or otherwise) to verify your identity and provide you the information you request. We will respond within 30 days to your request for access to your personal information. In some cases, we may not be able to remove your personal information, in which case we will let you know if we are unable to do so and why. If you would like to correct or update your personal information, you can manage your profile and subscriptions through our Privacy Center under the "My Account" dashboard. If you would like to delete your account or remove your information from our Website and Services, send an e-mail to privacy@jdsupra.com.

We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy at any time. Please refer to the date at the top of this page to determine when this Policy was last revised. Any changes to our Privacy Policy will become effective upon posting of the revised policy on the Website. By continuing to use our Website and Services following such changes, you will be deemed to have agreed to such changes.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, the practices of this site, your dealings with our Website or Services, or if you would like to change any of the information you have provided to us, please contact us at: privacy@jdsupra.com.

As with many websites, JD Supra's website (located at http://www.jdsupra.com) (our "Website") and our services (such as our email article digests)(our "Services") use a standard technology called a "cookie" and other similar technologies (such as, pixels and web beacons), which are small data files that are transferred to your computer when you use our Website and Services. These technologies automatically identify your browser whenever you interact with our Website and Services.

We use cookies and other tracking technologies to:

There are different types of cookies and other technologies used our Website, notably:

JD Supra Cookies. We place our own cookies on your computer to track certain information about you while you are using our Website and Services. For example, we place a session cookie on your computer each time you visit our Website. We use these cookies to allow you to log-in to your subscriber account. In addition, through these cookies we are able to collect information about how you use the Website, including what browser you may be using, your IP address, and the URL address you came from upon visiting our Website and the URL you next visit (even if those URLs are not on our Website). We also utilize email web beacons to monitor whether our emails are being delivered and read. We also use these tools to help deliver reader analytics to our authors to give them insight into their readership and help them to improve their content, so that it is most useful for our users.

Analytics/Performance Cookies. JD Supra also uses the following analytic tools to help us analyze the performance of our Website and Services as well as how visitors use our Website and Services:

Facebook, Twitter and other Social Network Cookies. Our content pages allow you to share content appearing on our Website and Services to your social media accounts through the "Like," "Tweet," or similar buttons displayed on such pages. To accomplish this Service, we embed code that such third party social networks provide and that we do not control. These buttons know that you are logged in to your social network account and therefore such social networks could also know that you are viewing the JD Supra Website.

If you would like to change how a browser uses cookies, including blocking or deleting cookies from the JD Supra Website and Services you can do so by changing the settings in your web browser. To control cookies, most browsers allow you to either accept or reject all cookies, only accept certain types of cookies, or prompt you every time a site wishes to save a cookie. It's also easy to delete cookies that are already saved on your device by a browser.

The processes for controlling and deleting cookies vary depending on which browser you use. To find out how to do so with a particular browser, you can use your browser's "Help" function or alternatively, you can visit http://www.aboutcookies.org which explains, step-by-step, how to control and delete cookies in most browsers.

We may update this cookie policy and our Privacy Policy from time-to-time, particularly as technology changes. You can always check this page for the latest version. We may also notify you of changes to our privacy policy by email.

If you have any questions about how we use cookies and other tracking technologies, please contact us at: privacy@jdsupra.com.

Continue reading here:

Bankruptcy, Coronavirus (COVID-19), and How Retailers Can Brace for the Impact - JD Supra

According to the United States Drug Enforcement Agency, which tracks the path of every single pain pill sold in the United States, 76 billion oxycodone and hydrocodone pain pills were sold from 2006 through 2012. During this growing drug epidemic manufacturers increased production about 51 percent from 8.4 billion in 2006 to 12.6 billion in 2012.

Now the drug companies that provided the fuel for our nations drug crisis are accused of aggressive marketing of opioids while ignoring or downplaying risk of addiction and overdose and of failing to report suspicious orders and distribution all in the name of profit. Communities were ravaged, families destroyed, and people died. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 702,000 people died in the nation from 1999 to 2017 from a drug overdose, and 68% of those deaths were attributed to opioid overdoses.

During this period, six companies were responsible for distributing the majority of pills: McKesson Corp., Walgreens, Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, CVS and Walmart. The four companies who manufactured the majority of these opioids were SpecGx, a subsidiary of Mallinckrodt; Actavis Pharma; Par Pharmaceutical, a subsidiary of Endo Pharmaceuticals; and Purdue Pharma.

The case against these pharmaceutical companies is simple what responsibility do they bear for helping create, and then profit, this deadly epidemic? I believe that ultimately these companies are responsible. They prioritized profits over human suffering. When dire reports of opioid addiction began to surface, they increased production. When people overdosed and died, they denied responsibility.

If you or a loved one became addicted to opioids that were prescribed by a doctor, such as Vicodin, hydrocodone, Percocet, Oxycontin, oxycodone or others and suffered through rehab, the loss of a job, losing custody of a child, or an ended marriage, we can explore your legal options. If you lost someone you care about died from an overdose, we can offer you a qualified opinion on your potential opioid lawsuit.

Through cases like these, we may be able to help stop the spread of opioid addiction.

If you have suffered from dependence on a prescription opioid call Saunders & Walker for a free confidential consultation about whether you may have a claim for monetary compensation from the bankruptcy fund. Call us at 800-748-7115.

Read the original post:

Deadline for Compensation from Opioid Bankruptcy Fund in June 2020 - Legal Examiner

Theres something deeply disturbing about seeing someone profit from a disaster, and weve already seen a few examples in the present crisis. First it was the guys who bought up over 17,000 bottles of hand sanitizer in the hopes of selling them at a high markup. (After Amazon put a stop to their sales, the pair of hoarders donated the sanitizer.) Now we have reports that multiple US senators may have acted on inside information about the coronavirus pandemic, selling stocks in anticipation of a crash, even as they failed to warn the public about the danger posed by the virus. These allegations, if they are indeed true, show that even in a time of crisis, our elected officials are looking out for themselves rather than the public.

ProPublica reports that North Carolina Republican Richard Burr, who was receiving daily coronavirus briefings as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sold off a significant percentage of his stocks, unloading between $628,000 and $1.72m of his holdings, a week before the stock market tanked. And while in public he was insisting that the government was capable of handling the virus, to well-connected constituents at the Capitol Hill Club he was warning that the virus was much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history. Then there was Georgia Republican Kelly Loeffler, who according to the Daily Beast also sold a substantial amount of stock in the leadup to the crash, as well as buying shares in the teleworking company Citrix. Other senators also sold stock around the same time, though the evidence of insider trading is less clear in the other cases.

Burr, Loeffler, and the others have denied wrongdoing, though have not offered especially convincing alternate explanations for the sales. If they did trade on insider information, what they did was probably illegalunder the Stock Act, which Burr voted against, lawmakers are prohibited from trading on nonpublic information, though the definition of nonpublic is not always clear and Burr says he relied solely on public news reports.

But even if that was true, the fact that Burr had reason to suspect that the disaster would be worse than he was publicly letting on is a deep betrayal of his constituents. He should entirely lose the confidence of the public, because its clear that he chose to make money at a time when he should have been offering Americans the truth. Thats why even figures like Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro have been outraged by the alleged behavior, with Carlson saying there is no greater moral crime than choosing yourself over your country at a time of crisis.

Elected officials whose first response to a pandemic is to cash in are indeed monstrous. But its not especially surprising in the Trump Era, when the pathological pursuit of financial self-interest is widely seen as unobjectionable. Burr and Loeffler were just doing what they learned in Economics 101: rationally maximize your returns, regardless of the consequences for other people. Its a little surprising to see Shapiro condemning this behavior instead of defending it as an example of the glorious free market at work. After all, you frequently see defenses of price-gouging among free market types, which is no less sociopathic of a behavior during a time of need. Its strange to see those who are generally fine with those who profit off human misery like, for example, health insurance companies get so worked up about insider trading.

The alleged behavior of Burr and Loeffler is indeed despicable, and there is a reasonable discussion to be had about whether senators ought to own stock in the first place. Can we trust people to make laws neutrally if they are significantly financially invested in the outcome of those laws? But we should also make sure not to over-focus on insider trading and corruption as being whats wrong with our politics. They are one part of what is wrong, to be sure, but more important than self-enrichment is the fact that US senators are allowing people to suffer and die needlessly by failing to push through the measures needed to deal with the coronavirus crisis.

Unethical and selfish behavior becomes especially disgusting in a time of a deadly pandemic, but we must keep our focus on giving people the healthcare and economic relief they will need to get through this. The inadequacy of current measures is a crime in which many elected officials in both parties are complicit, and we should be just as angry at the legislators who kill people through inaction as the few who jumped at the opportunity to make a buck.

The rest is here:

US senators accused of coronavirus insider trading are a symbol of moral bankruptcy - The Guardian

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in front of Fairway Market in Brooklyn (Credit: MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images; Jules Antonio via Flickr)

Amazon is looking to buy four Fairway Market stores in New York and New Jersey, two months after the grocery chain filed for bankruptcy.

The e-commerce giant is focused on acquiring one store in Pelham, New York, one in Brooklyn and two in New Jersey, according to the New York Post. Although there has been speculation that Amazon would use them as distribution centers, its specific plans for the sites are still unknown.

Fairway filed for Ch. 11 bankruptcy in late January, but Amazon has not expressed interest in buying the entire chain or its brand name.

Amazon bought the upscale grocery store chain Whole Foods in 2017 for $13.4 billion. It also recently launched a cashierless grocery store in Capitol Hill and is developing a grocery store in Woodland Hills, California. [NYP] Eddie Small

View original post here:

Amazon seeking to purchase 4 Fairway locations after grocerys bankruptcy filing - The Real Deal

A federal judge rejects arguments from Bradley Cooper and other 'Silver Linings Playbook' stars and comes to a conclusion that the DGA, SAG-AFTRA and the WGA warn could deprive their members of bargained film profits.

The next few months figure to be a rocky one in Hollywood. And if the coronavirus epidemic gets worse, there could be bankruptcies. If that happens, many Hollywood stars could be at risk of being deprived of expected profits from movies and television shows. Witness a decision made Friday by a Delaware federal court.

The dispute emanates from the Chapter 11 bankruptcy of The Weinstein Co., which itself was precipitated when Harvey Weinstein was outed as a serial rapist. Once in bankruptcy, the debtor sold most of its assets to Spyglass Media (formerly known as Lantern Entertainment) for $287 million. But not everyone was happy with the deal. There were many individuals and companies who wanted assurances they'd be getting everything owed under profit participation deals. The list included Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Quentin Tarantino, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray and Julia Roberts.

Spyglass decided to go on offense.

As a test case, Spyglass suedSilver Linings Playbook producer Bruce Cohen and sought a determination that his contract was not executory, meaning that obligations under the deal had been substantially performed. If Spyglass was correct, that meant it could be assigned Cohen's contract free and clear of any claims. Spyglass anticipated that the resolution of this dispute would aid in determining the executory nature of similar contracts.

In January 2019, a Delaware bankruptcy judge ruled in Spyglass' favor.

That decision was appealed by Cohen and many of the stars who worked onSilver Linings Playbook, including Cooper, De Niro and director David O. Russell.

The appeal then attracted an amicus brief from the Directors Guild of America, SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America West. According to the guilds, the entertainment industry had witnessed a surge of bankruptcies of late (e.g. Relativity,Open Road, etc.) and there should be no "perfunctory per se rule that finds entertainment industry personal service agreements to be nonexecutory once the underlying project is completed."

The guilds added that depriving them of contingent or deferred compensation would be "a severe blow, greatly diminishing their return in exchange for providing the very services that created product value in the first place."

Unfortunately for the talent working onSilver Linings Playbookas well as other directors, writers and actors in the entertainment community, a Delaware district court on Friday affirmed the bankruptcy judge's decision.

"The Court finds no error in the Bankruptcy Courts application," states the opinion (read here). "First, the primary purpose, or 'root' of the Cohen Agreement, which is self-described as a work-for-hire agreement, was the production of the film and the transfer of rights of authorship such that TWC could exploit such rights without concerns about claims from the Cohen Parties. The Cohen Agreement provides that the transfer of authorship rights occurred upon its execution. The material obligations under the Cohen Agreement were performed in 2011 and 2012 in 2011, when the intellectual property and other rights to and under the film were transferred to the Debtors at the time the parties executed the Cohen Agreement, and in 2012 when the film was produced and released. The film was released on November 16, 2012, and there is no question that the Cohen Parties performed their production services for the film almost six years prior to the Petition Date. In exchange, the Cohen Parties received fixed compensation and contingent compensation. After the film was released, the only obligations remaining under the Cohen Agreement were ancillary and could not be material."

The federal court rejects arguments that the ongoing nature of contingent compensation and other terms of the contract such as Cohen's ongoing obligation not to interfere with distribution is cause for a different interpretation.

It's possible that the ruling could see further appeal. In the meantime, the outcome here figures to impact future dealmaking in Hollywood and could be a notable development as the industry at large hits rocky economic times brought upon by a health calamity.

See the original post here:

Hollywood's Creatives Suffer Blow in Appeal Over Weinstein Co.'s Bankruptcy Sale - Hollywood Reporter

The coronavirus emergency has highlighted the irresponsibility of the fiscal policies of Trump.

Cutting taxes while raising spending since 2016 has resulted in trillion dollar yearly deficits that jeopardize the future. Experts all along have warned that this would limit our response to inevitable recessions.

Now that we have a crisis Trump is proposing spending $850 billion additional borrowed dollars to try to avoid an economic meltdown. But can we survive the debt crisis that is being created? Or are we as a nation destined to be Trumps seventh bankruptcy?

Peter Rowland

Raymond

Invalid username/password.

Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.

Previous

Next

Read this article:

Letter to the Editor: Pandemic debt crisis is Trump's latest bankruptcy - Press Herald

Workers disinfect an apartment complex in Wuhan (Credit: Feature China/Barcroft Media via Getty Images)

The coronavirus pandemic has devastated an already weakened residential real estate sector in China.

More than 100 real estate firms active in China filed for bankruptcy in the first two months of the year, according to Bloomberg. Smaller firms are taking the biggest hit, said China Index Holdings Ltd. Research Director Huang Yu.

A vast number of mid- to small-sized developers will face a choice no one wants to make either sell their property assets and start another business, or be bought out, Yu said, according to Bloomberg.

Yu expects that the wave of bankruptcies will result in a consolidation of real estate companies in the country because of mergers and acquisitions. Fusheng Group Co., based in the southeast of the country, has become one of the first mid-size companies to falter and sell a controlling stake to a larger company.

Rental management companies and short-term rental companies are among those under immense pressure from containment policies and reduced travel.

Standard & Poors is projecting that new home sales in China will drop for the first time in 12 years this year. Sales could be down between 15 percent and 20 percent depending how the next month or so shakes out.

The crisis in China is taking its toll stateside. U.S. construction firms are also feeling the effects of the crisis in China, which supplies about 30 percent of the countrys materials. Contractors are having trouble sourcing materials domestically and are slowed by shipping delays, meaning projects are slowing down.

As the virus has spread worldwide, the U.S hotel sector saw key fundamentals decline as well. [Bloomberg] Dennis Lych

See the original post:

More than 100 Chinese real estate firms have filed for bankruptcy this year - The Real Deal

(Bloomberg) --

The spreading coronavirus has already begun hurting the most vulnerable companies: those in bankruptcy or teetering on the edge.

Retailers like furniture seller Pier 1 Imports Inc. and direct-mailer Bluestem Brands Inc. have pointed to virus woes in justifying their requests for court protection, while cash-strapped energy companies -- already reeling from an oil market sell-off -- are seeing the pandemic disrupt long-standing restructuring plans.

Patient zero for the insolvency world may have been publicly traded Valeritas Holdings Inc., a bankrupt seller of diabetes devices that said in early February the shutdown of factories in China pressured its supply chain, worsening an existing cash crunch. The company plans to sell itself for just $23 million, citing uncertainty surrounding when workers in rural China will return to factories among its many problems.

Given the commercial reaction to the virus and the wheels of the economy slowing at this pace, the implications will be wide-reaching and long term, Duston McFaul, a partner in the bankruptcy practice at Sidley Austin LLP in Houston, said in an interview. Credit and lending markets are all taking a step back to gauge the implications and to know how to react.

Empty Shelves

The Chinese factories that produce so much of the worlds goods -- including Valeritas V-Go Insulin device -- are beginning to reopen, but empty store shelves will likely become a common sight in the coming months.

The virus will likely have some effect on inventory levels for the foreseeable future, Pier 1 Chief Executive Officer Robert Riesbeck said in court papers last month when the company filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors.

Industries reliant on crowds like restaurants, retail and hotels will likely see an impact from the virus and could be forced to dismiss employees or cut their hours, said Sidney Scheinberg, chair of the bankruptcy and creditors-rights arm of Godwin Bowman PC in Dallas. Restaurant chains are already under pressure from rising wages and third-party delivery service competition.

In some cases, the virus helped finish off companies that were headed for court anyway. Foresight Energy LP, the newly bankrupt coal miner, said in its court papers this week that its prospects were hurt when Covid-19 weakened the economy and demand for coal. Foresight had been in trouble for some time, though: it suspended its quarterly dividend in May and missed an interest payment in October.

School Closings

An attorney for Dean Foods Co., the top U.S. milk processor that went bust in November, told a bankruptcy judge in Houston Thursday the company is getting calls from schools across the country to take back milk deliveries in the wake of virus-related closings. Dean would lose millions of dollars each month if its school food service business dries up, Brian Resnick of Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP said, because schools account for such a large portion of the companys milk sales.

The pandemic is hitting deal financing, too. Art Van Furniture LLC, which filed for bankruptcy last week, was closing in on an out-of-court cash infusion when the virus crushed equities markets, helping the deal fall apart, Chief Financial Officer David Ladd said in a court declaration. Elsewhere, a proposed $320 million sale of bankrupt Alta Mesa Resources Inc. assets is in doubt because the buyers say they cant line up the promised financing amid the virus-induced market turmoil.

That makes Houston-based EP Energy Corp. look like one of the lucky ones. The oil and gas producer disclosed its bankruptcy plan back in October, well before coronavirus was making headlines. Creditors fighting the drillers proposal argued earlier this month that the pandemic could tamp down demand for oil in the longer term, and that the companys plan to keep at least $1.5 billion of debt on its books wasnt feasible.

Judge Marvin Isgur ultimately approved the plan. Three days later, oil prices crashed.

I know that weve got problems out there and I dont know how to deal with them, Isgur said in a hearing Wednesday, where he confirmed hell sign a court order enforcing his earlier ruling. Im just going to be prepared to deal with them the best I can.

--With assistance from Tiffany Kary.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jeremy Hill in New York at jhill273@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rick Green at rgreen18@bloomberg.net, Boris Korby

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.

2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Originally posted here:

Busted Companies Blame Virus for Pushing Them Into Bankruptcy - Yahoo Finance

Bankruptcy veteranDr. Edward Altmansees trouble brewing in corporate credit, with mass ratings downgrades and company bankruptcies on the horizon as the coronavirus outbreak shakes the global economy.

Altman, who is a professor emeritus at NYU Stern School of Business added that even before the virus, the fundamentals of companies and markets were already showing a lot of warning signs.

A growing number of analysts predict the markets mass selling of risk-sensitive assets will eventually hammer the corporate debt sector, where companies some with weak balance sheets have feasted on cheap credit.

I think the chances of a recession have spiked dramatically, obviously, since the coronavirus threat and now impact has happened, Altman told Yahoo Finance, pointing out that the average economist is now forecasting around a 60% chance of a recession within the next 12 months, up dramatically from before the outbreak.

That means a lot of companies kept afloat by cheap borrowing costs could be in real trouble. Altman contended that many of them should actually go bankrupt, because they are zombies and have been kept alive by historically low rates.

Recently, Moodys Investors Service forecasted that issuer default rates could rise by the end of this year, and the coronavirus outbreak could make it even worse. Speculative-grade debt, otherwise known as junk bonds, is likely to be hardest hit.

Altman who pioneered the financial-distress sniffing Z-Score, a formula he created more than 50 years ago for predicting bankruptcies suggested ratings agencies are often slow to recognize when companies need to get downgraded.

We ran a Z-Score test on BBB companies in the United States year-end 2019. And, in a downturn, a big downturn which happened in 08 and 2002 etcetera, maybe 10% the rating agencies say get downgraded, he said.

Thats a very important thing downgraded to high yield. If that happens, then you have problems in that market depending on the amount, he said adding that his model suggests the situation could be far worse than that 10% figure.

We ran our tests looking objectively at the health of BBB companies at the end of 2019 when everything was going great, and we came up with more than 30% looked vulnerable to a downgrade, in fact, looked like non-investment grade companies even then, Altman told Yahoo Finance.

And thats going to happen, maybe not 30%, because we dont do the rating change. But it does happen, and when that happens, a lot of marginal companies are going to be forced out of business, he added.

Julia La Roche is a Correspondent at Yahoo Finance. Follow her onTwitter.

Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance

Follow Yahoo Finance onTwitter,Facebook,Instagram,Flipboard,SmartNews,LinkedIn,YouTube, andreddit.

More here:

Bankruptcy expert Ed Altman: 'A lot of marginal companies are going to be forced out of business' - Yahoo Finance

Chapter 11 bankruptcy has allowed Houston oilfield service company Weatherford International to close 2019 with its first profit in more than six years.

Chapter 11 bankruptcy has allowed Houston oilfield service company Weatherford International to close 2019 with its first profit in more than six years.

Photo: Sergio Chapa / Houston Chronicle

Chapter 11 bankruptcy has allowed Houston oilfield service company Weatherford International to close 2019 with its first profit in more than six years.

Chapter 11 bankruptcy has allowed Houston oilfield service company Weatherford International to close 2019 with its first profit in more than six years.

Bankruptcy allows Weatherford to realize first profit in more than six years

Chapter 11 bankruptcy has allowed Houston oilfield service company Weatherford International to close 2019 with its first profit in more than six years.

Shedding roughly $6 billion of debt after successfully emerging from Chapter 11 reorganization in mid-December, Weatherford reported a $5.3 billion profit on more than $1.2 billion of revenue during the fourth quarter. The figures were mixed on the $2.1 billion loss on $1.4 billion of revenue during the fourth quarter of 2018.

Burdened by billion of dollars of debt, Weatherford had previously not made a profit since the third quarter of 2014.

Service Sector: Weatherford emerges from bankruptcy with $10 billion of support

Looking at the company's end-of-year results, shedding debt allowed Weatherford to close 2019 with a $3.6 billion profit on $5.2 billion of revenue. The figures were mixed compared to the $2.8 billion loss on $5.7 billion of revenue reported in 2018.

With roots in Texas going back to 1941, Weatherford had grown to become the nation's fourth-largest oil field services company but racked up $10 billion in debt along the way.

Fuel Fix: Get daily energy news headlines in your inbox

See more here:

Bankruptcy allows Weatherford to realize first profit in more than six years - Chron

13 March 2020, 21:20 | Updated: 13 March 2020, 21:42

As the coronavirus pandemic impacts all parts of life, society, and the economy, musicians are left to feel the profound financial, artistic and emotional impacts.

The coronavirus pandemic has brought huge disruption to daily life, to many around the world. Concert halls are closed, gatherings cancelled, and large sectors of the economy are paralysed. Many members of the classical audience are self-isolating or just staying home.

All the major classical music events cancelled due to coronavirus so far >

Everyone we talked to agrees that the public's health and people's safety comes first at this time. However, freelance and touring musicians, who rely on performances for their livelihoods, are feeling a deep impact from the cancelled performances, scrapped tours and the resulting loss of income and opportunities.

Classic FM spoke to violinist Miriam Davis on Friday afternoon.

"A few minutes ago I had tonight's performance of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, for which I spent 4 months preparing, cancelled with just 4 hours notice.

"This follows yesterday, the cancellation of every other concert in my diary for the next 2 months.

"Ive turned down other work to practise. We often prepare for months with payment only expected at concert at the end.

"On top of the sadness and anxiety of the virus situation, every musician I know is now facing bankruptcy. We cannot pay our rent, we cannot buy food, and we see no relief from this situation.

"Im personally heartbroken not to be playing the piece tonight. It's a time of human anxiety and suffering, and live music is one of the few things which could bring small solace, I was grateful today for one last chance to offer some beauty, peace and joy in this world. Now, that too has gone."

British Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnston told us of the shockwaves cancellations and disruption will send through the music industry.

"The current situation, with most cultural organisations worldwide shutting down for a period, is unprecedented and will cause most self-employed performers to face major financial issues, even bankruptcy.

"Most performers live life on a financial knife-edge because if we dont work, we dont get paid, and we arent catered for even under the current statutory sick pay regime.

"Clearly, everyones health is important, and so no-one is opposing the shutdowns, but nonetheless there is grave concern that not only are there severe financial implications for individuals, but also arts organisations themselves will struggle, having lost ticket revenues or income from touring, or, in the case of agents, commission from contracts carried out by their artists.

"We will feel shockwaves as a result for a long time to come."

We also heard from Australian flautist Ana de la Vega, who is currently on the road, touring in Europe. She said she was struggling to comprehend the impact of a rapid string of cancellations and the deep emotional impacts of sudden travel restrictions.

"I'm feeling the sadness, disappointment and stress of the past days. I've been on the road and trying to keep it going, not knowing what is happening, and one by one having our concerts cancelled.

"I'm touring to promote a CD with oboist Ramn Ortega Quero. We've been working on this for more than a year. This is what we do and live for, and we just wanted to play and share music.

"On tour, I'm separated from my family and I've just learnt that I can't return home to Scandinavia without putting myself, my husband and two-year-old daughter in quarantine.

"After these cancellations, I have no further performances until June and which to me feels like both means nothing financially and nothing for the soul. Emotionally thats really complex, and hard to explain."

Ana's new release of Haydn and Stamitz is a wonderful one, and was Classic FM's Drive Discovery a few weeks ago. Please do buy a copy in support of the project she spend years creating.

John Brunning's Drive Discovery this week has been an outstanding new recording of Haydn & Stamitz Concertos for Flute...

Guitarist and conductor Michael Poll writes:

"Unlike most workers who have one job or freelance for one platform, I depend on a broad portfolio of work for inspiration and solvency. This is uncertain in the best of times I don't know another artist not concerned that it could all dry up one morning due to injury, disaster, or act of God. Covid-19 is now eating away at the heart of the spring and possibly the summer season, so the biggest projects that I count on and the smaller ones that are more regular are in serious jeopardy.

"But I try not to be all doom and gloom, so I'm refocusing on the chance to develop new repertoire, polish my writing, and record a new project. But I get a lot of energy from playing out in the world, so I can't say it's not a challenge!"

Greek-American soprano Jamie Chamberlin took to Twitter to share a plea on behalf of artists struggling with canceled performances and uncertain incomes.

In an Instagram post, Chamberlin said: "Most of us have a clause called force majeure in our contracts which leaves us vulnerable to a total loss of income, even if we've already done work in learning our roles and music".

She suggested if ticket holders and patrons wanted to support artists and creative organisations at this time, they could donate their refunded ticket price back "Most artists do not have a significant safety net for this type of income loss", she said.

See the article here:

Every musician I know is now facing bankruptcy the impact of coronavirus cancellations on classical... - Classic FM

Chennai: The Southern Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SICCI) on Monday made a representation to the government to instruct banks not to invoke Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) for non-payment as one of the measures to provide businesses with relief owing to the impact of the novel Coronavirus.

"Possibility of delayed payments cannot be ruled out due to various factors including production losses, non-availability of manpower, reduction of sale and other extraneous factors. Banks should be instructed not to invoke IBC for non-payment and should suspend any action by a quarter for the economy to settle down," the organisation said in its letter to the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

SICCI provided a slew of other suggestions in its letter which focused on measures with regard to tax and other legislations and operation of businesses. In its letter, R Ganapathi, President of SICCI said the penetration of the virus was impacting industry.

"There is visible contraction in production, manufacture, import and exports, including consumption. This could be attributed to various concerns including - shortage of raw material, non-availability of manpower, uncertainty of consumption and general reluctance due to ambiguity of the future turn of the virus," the letter read.

SICCI went on to add that the Government should play a 'supportive role' and 'build confidence in the minds of industry while also boosting morale and ensuring that the economy is not crippled.' It lauded the initiatives that the Government has taken in response to curbing the outbreak but sent a list of suggestions that it believed would further help the industry.

"The Government of India has taken a number of initiatives to support the trade and industry as providing work from home facility for IT/ITes companies, relaxation from DOT standpoint and extension of GST audits for the period 2018-19 and deferment of e-invoicing and new returns till October 1, 2020. Owing to cases across India, the business community has been facing a lot of challenges in conducting business as well as from an employee safety perspective."

The rest is here:

Banks should be instructed not to invoke IBC for non-payment in testing times of Coronavirus: SICCI - Economic Times

Energy valuations are taking an epic pummeling

Energy valuations are taking an epic pummeling.Considering declining demand amid COVID-19 concerns, the initial fallout to the Saudi-Russia feud this weekend was predictable.Within hours, prices had dropped like an anchor (to $33 a barrel as of this morning).Several companies have already announced cutbacks, including Diamondback Energy, as they dropped two additional drilling crews.Parsley Energy made a similar announcement andmore are sure to follow.Perhaps even more draconian, SM Energys unsecured bonds fell to $0.42 on the dollar and pushed the yield up to around 25%.These bonds traded above $0.90 as recently as February 24th.Trading has been halted this morning amid the panic.Whether the market fallout has hit rock bottom remains to be seen. Regardless of what Russia may have been thinking, the geopolitical climate has put more pressure on U.S. producers and bankers.Operators who were contemplating hedging production at $50 per barrel but waiting to act are kicking themselves today.

Energy and related bankruptcies that were estimated to rise in 2020 will likely accelerate a few notches.According to Haynes and Boones Oilfield Services Bankruptcy Tracker, there were six (6) new bankruptcies in the oilfield services area in the fourth quarter of 2019.Up until this point in 2020, Pioneer Energy Services is the only major oilfield services company to enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy.Thats almost undoubtedly going to change soon.As upstream companies have vowed to spend within their cash flow, oilfield services will take the biggest brunt of this at first.However, producers with high leverage capital structures could quickly follow.Gas prices have held their ground but theyre so low anyway, its hard to know how much lower they could go.

The looming factor for companies is how banks will go about determining borrowing bases this year.Its a tough position to be in at this point.Bankers at the Hart Energy Capital Conference in Dallas last week did their best to portray patience towards the upstream sector, but were also clear about expectations.Those expectations were that borrowers can meet their obligations, and that borrowing bases will shrink with valuations.One of the speakers, Tom Petrie, expressed concern about $110 billion in debt coming due in the next decade for the energy market.

As working interest values for producing interests dive, the expected returns have changed from PV10 to closer to PV20.This has degraded credit quality.The mix of below-investment grade debt has worsened in the past year.In high yield markets, CCC or below is the most common rating according to some recent data.

High Yield Debt Rating Mix

Even if bankers lending on reserves maintain their lending ratios, the borrowing bases will shrink accordingly.However, based on recent indications, lending ratios have and will continue to shrink alongside values.Debt-to-EBITDA ratios which used to often float in the 3.5x to 4.5x range are now, not surprisingly, in the 2.5x to 3.5x range.Enterprise values for upstream producers were often between 6.0x to 8.0x EBITDA too.That is in the past.

Shifting Credit Ratios

Impacts appear bad and immediate.However, this plunge could, ironically, buy the market a little more time.The founder of OnyPoint Global Management, L.P., Shaia Hosseinzadeh, told Bloomberg just last week that Things are so bad now, that the banks can kick the can down the road and say theres no point of rushing everybody into bankruptcy, well wait until October. But if its business as usual, its going to be a horror show.That may be a prescient thought.Another consideration is that fewer banks are even lending to energy companies anymore.The rise of the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) movement, alongside weak returns, have pushed many bankers and other investors out of the space.There isnt as much capital to go around, not that its cheaply available right now anyway.

Due to valuations being so low, the recovery for bankers coming out of Chapter 7 situations may be less attractive, especially on the oilfield service side.The market value of intangible assets is so depressed compared to other times in the commodity cycle, that it may not make economic sense to rush into the process for some.

This prognostication about delayed bank behavior may be a moot point if liquids values cant recoup over time.This is an undercurrent that has been a factor in keeping values down recently.Electrification trends and the idea that liquids demand will wane have proffered the notion that demand for liquids will be flat to even shrinking in the future, all while supply becomes bountiful.Some project the electrical passenger car trends to reach around 20% by the end of this decade.However, while the short-term appears bleak, many projections about the medium- and longer-term remain more optimistic for upstream producers and servicers.J.P. Morgan Cazenove recently suggested that the oil industry may be under equipped to meet demand recovery in 2021 and beyond.Another way of putting that is downward pressure on prices could be its own cure in the medium term.Capex budgets have been slashed and continue to be.Over 200 oil drilling rigs (and counting) have been shut down in the past six months.Production will suffer, even with drilling and production efficiencies achieved in recent years.Especially in the U.S. shale markets, declines on existing wells drop off so fast, that their effect on supply will show up sooner rather than later.

Producers are hopeful for this.Regardless of the markets relentless pounding down on reserve values, producers know that, particularly proven reserves are next years production.They do not want to sell or unload them for the pennies on the dollar (or less) that implied valuation multiples suggest right now.Intrinsically, they have much more value than inferred by market capitalizations.Management teams believe that enterprise values shouldnt be trading at a fraction of PV10 values over a long period of time.At a minimum, many producers believe there is an optionality to their future drilling inventory.

The question remains, could that happen fast enough to save a bankruptcy slog this year?Only time will tell.

Read more:

Energy Valuations: Freefall Into Bankruptcy Or Is This Time Different? - Forbes

'); $("#expandable-weather-block .modal-body #mrd-alert"+ alertCount).append(""+val.title+""); // if (window.location.hostname == "www.kmov.com" || window.location.hostname == "www.kctv5.com" || window.location.hostname == "www.azfamily.com" || window.location.hostname == "www.kptv.com" || window.location.hostname == "www.fox5vegas.com" || window.location.hostname == "www.wfsb.com") { if (val.poly != "" && val.polyimg != "") { $("#expandable-weather-block .modal-body #mrd-alert"+ alertCount).append('"+val.ihtml+""); $("#expandable-weather-block .weather-index-alerts").show(); $("#expandable-weather-block .modal-body h2").css({"font-family":"'Fira Sans', sans-serif", "font-weight":"500", "padding-bottom":"10px"}); $("#expandable-weather-block .modal-body p").css({"font-size":"14px", "line-height":"24px"}); $("#expandable-weather-block .modal-body span.wxalertnum").css({"float":"left", "width":"40px", "height":"40px", "color":"#ffffff", "line-height":"40px", "background-color":"#888888", "border-radius":"40px", "text-align":"center", "margin-right":"12px"}); $("#expandable-weather-block .modal-body b").css("font-size", "18px"); $("#expandable-weather-block .modal-body li").css({"font-size":"14px", "line-height":"18px", "margin-bottom":"10px"}); $("#expandable-weather-block .modal-body ul").css({"margin-bottom":"24px"}); $("#expandable-weather-block .modal-body pre").css({"margin-bottom":"24px"}); $("#expandable-weather-block .modal-body img").css({"width":"100%", "margin-bottom":"20px", "borderWidth":"1px", "border-style":"solid", "border-color":"#aaaaaa"}); $("#expandable-weather-block .modal-body #mrd-alert"+ alertCount).css({"borderWidth":"0", "border-bottom-width":"1px", "border-style":"dashed", "border-color":"#aaaaaa", "padding-bottom":"10px", "margin-bottom":"40px"}); }); } function parseAlertJSON(json) { console.log(json); alertCount = 0; if (Object.keys(json.alerts).length > 0) { $("#mrd-wx-alerts .modal-body ").empty(); } $.each(json.alerts, function(key, val) { alertCount++; $("#mrd-wx-alerts .alert_count").text(alertCount); $("#mrd-wx-alerts .modal-body ").append(''); $("#mrd-wx-alerts .modal-body #mrd-alert"+ alertCount).append(""+val.title+""); // if (window.location.hostname == "www.kmov.com" || window.location.hostname == "www.kctv5.com" || window.location.hostname == "www.azfamily.com" || window.location.hostname == "www.kptv.com" || window.location.hostname == "www.fox5vegas.com" || window.location.hostname == "www.wfsb.com") { if (val.poly != "" && val.polyimg != "") { $("#mrd-wx-alerts .modal-body #mrd-alert"+ alertCount).append(''); } else if (val.fips != "" && val.fipsimg != "") { // $("#mrd-wx-alerts .modal-body #mrd-alert"+ alertCount).append(''); } // } //val.instr = val.instr.replace(/[W_]+/g," "); $("#mrd-wx-alerts .modal-body #mrd-alert"+ alertCount).append(val.dhtml+"

Instruction

More:

Art Van bankruptcy could leave customers without items, refunds - WNEM Saginaw

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

The Washington Times editors recently wrote that Puerto Ricos creditors need to know the depth of the fiscal hole into which the island has dug itself (Its time to audit Puerto Rico for real, Web, Feb. 27). We, the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico, know the answer.

In August 2018, we presented a 600-plus-page investigative report about the debt and the factors that contributed to Puerto Ricos fiscal crisis. It was the result of an independent investigation by Kobre & Kim LLC. It investigated Puerto Ricos $74-billion debt and approximately $50 billion in pension liabilities piled up by more than 90 entities, including the commonwealths government and its instrumentalities, going back to 2006. The independent investigator reviewed approximately 260,800 documents and interviewed 120 witnesses, including former and current senior government officers, underwriters, rating agencies, and outside professionals and advisers. It identified potential recoveries.

It is available to the public on our website, and we encourage everyone to read it.

Why would we duplicate the work Kobre & Kim did with yet another audit that would takes years to complete and cost millions of taxpayer dollars only to find out what we already know? What Puerto Rico needs is to get out of bankruptcy so it can build a foundation for economic growth and prosperity.

The board has reached agreements or completed restructurings that would reduce Puerto Ricos debt to $38 billion. These include a plan of adjustment, filed last week, that would reduce $35 billion in Puerto Ricos central government debt alone to $11 billion. The plan is supported by almost 60 percent of bondholders despite meaningful reductions of the value of their claims. The plan also includes a debt-management policy to ensure that Puerto Ricos history of irresponsible borrowing will not repeat itself. But among the most important of the policys elements is that new debt may only be used to finance capital improvements, not operating deficits and refinancing debt is only permitted if it saves Puerto Rico money.

Not only is remaining in bankruptcy costly to the economy now, but without access to capital markets in the future, Puerto Ricos ability to invest in infrastructure is limited. It is paramount that we turn the corner from this crisis as soon as reasonably possible.

NATALIE JARESKO

Executive director

Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico

San Juan, Puerto Rico

View post:

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Bankruptcy costing Puerto Rico - Washington Times

Updated: May 25, 2018:

JD Supra is a legal publishing service that connects experts and their content with broader audiences of professionals, journalists and associations.

This Privacy Policy describes how JD Supra, LLC ("JD Supra" or "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses and shares personal data collected from visitors to our website (located at http://www.jdsupra.com) (our "Website") who view only publicly-available content as well as subscribers to our services (such as our email digests or author tools)(our "Services"). By using our Website and registering for one of our Services, you are agreeing to the terms of this Privacy Policy.

Please note that if you subscribe to one of our Services, you can make choices about how we collect, use and share your information through our Privacy Center under the "My Account" dashboard (available if you are logged into your JD Supra account).

Registration Information. When you register with JD Supra for our Website and Services, either as an author or as a subscriber, you will be asked to provide identifying information to create your JD Supra account ("Registration Data"), such as your:

Other Information: We also collect other information you may voluntarily provide. This may include content you provide for publication. We may also receive your communications with others through our Website and Services (such as contacting an author through our Website) or communications directly with us (such as through email, feedback or other forms or social media). If you are a subscribed user, we will also collect your user preferences, such as the types of articles you would like to read.

Information from third parties (such as, from your employer or LinkedIn): We may also receive information about you from third party sources. For example, your employer may provide your information to us, such as in connection with an article submitted by your employer for publication. If you choose to use LinkedIn to subscribe to our Website and Services, we also collect information related to your LinkedIn account and profile.

Your interactions with our Website and Services: As is true of most websites, we gather certain information automatically. This information includes IP addresses, browser type, Internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp and clickstream data. We use this information to analyze trends, to administer the Website and our Services, to improve the content and performance of our Website and Services, and to track users' movements around the site. We may also link this automatically-collected data to personal information, for example, to inform authors about who has read their articles. Some of this data is collected through information sent by your web browser. We also use cookies and other tracking technologies to collect this information. To learn more about cookies and other tracking technologies that JD Supra may use on our Website and Services please see our "Cookies Guide" page.

We use the information and data we collect principally in order to provide our Website and Services. More specifically, we may use your personal information to:

JD Supra takes reasonable and appropriate precautions to insure that user information is protected from loss, misuse and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and destruction. We restrict access to user information to those individuals who reasonably need access to perform their job functions, such as our third party email service, customer service personnel and technical staff. You should keep in mind that no Internet transmission is ever 100% secure or error-free. Where you use log-in credentials (usernames, passwords) on our Website, please remember that it is your responsibility to safeguard them. If you believe that your log-in credentials have been compromised, please contact us at privacy@jdsupra.com.

Our Website and Services are not directed at children under the age of 16 and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 16 through our Website and/or Services. If you have reason to believe that a child under the age of 16 has provided personal information to us, please contact us, and we will endeavor to delete that information from our databases.

Our Website and Services may contain links to other websites. The operators of such other websites may collect information about you, including through cookies or other technologies. If you are using our Website or Services and click a link to another site, you will leave our Website and this Policy will not apply to your use of and activity on those other sites. We encourage you to read the legal notices posted on those sites, including their privacy policies. We are not responsible for the data collection and use practices of such other sites. This Policy applies solely to the information collected in connection with your use of our Website and Services and does not apply to any practices conducted offline or in connection with any other websites.

JD Supra's principal place of business is in the United States. By subscribing to our website, you expressly consent to your information being processed in the United States.

You can make a request to exercise any of these rights by emailing us at privacy@jdsupra.com or by writing to us at:

You can also manage your profile and subscriptions through our Privacy Center under the "My Account" dashboard.

We will make all practical efforts to respect your wishes. There may be times, however, where we are not able to fulfill your request, for example, if applicable law prohibits our compliance. Please note that JD Supra does not use "automatic decision making" or "profiling" as those terms are defined in the GDPR.

Pursuant to Section 1798.83 of the California Civil Code, our customers who are California residents have the right to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes.

You can make a request for this information by emailing us at privacy@jdsupra.com or by writing to us at:

Some browsers have incorporated a Do Not Track (DNT) feature. These features, when turned on, send a signal that you prefer that the website you are visiting not collect and use data regarding your online searching and browsing activities. As there is not yet a common understanding on how to interpret the DNT signal, we currently do not respond to DNT signals on our site.

For non-EU/Swiss residents, if you would like to know what personal information we have about you, you can send an e-mail to privacy@jdsupra.com. We will be in contact with you (by mail or otherwise) to verify your identity and provide you the information you request. We will respond within 30 days to your request for access to your personal information. In some cases, we may not be able to remove your personal information, in which case we will let you know if we are unable to do so and why. If you would like to correct or update your personal information, you can manage your profile and subscriptions through our Privacy Center under the "My Account" dashboard. If you would like to delete your account or remove your information from our Website and Services, send an e-mail to privacy@jdsupra.com.

We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy at any time. Please refer to the date at the top of this page to determine when this Policy was last revised. Any changes to our Privacy Policy will become effective upon posting of the revised policy on the Website. By continuing to use our Website and Services following such changes, you will be deemed to have agreed to such changes.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, the practices of this site, your dealings with our Website or Services, or if you would like to change any of the information you have provided to us, please contact us at: privacy@jdsupra.com.

As with many websites, JD Supra's website (located at http://www.jdsupra.com) (our "Website") and our services (such as our email article digests)(our "Services") use a standard technology called a "cookie" and other similar technologies (such as, pixels and web beacons), which are small data files that are transferred to your computer when you use our Website and Services. These technologies automatically identify your browser whenever you interact with our Website and Services.

We use cookies and other tracking technologies to:

There are different types of cookies and other technologies used our Website, notably:

JD Supra Cookies. We place our own cookies on your computer to track certain information about you while you are using our Website and Services. For example, we place a session cookie on your computer each time you visit our Website. We use these cookies to allow you to log-in to your subscriber account. In addition, through these cookies we are able to collect information about how you use the Website, including what browser you may be using, your IP address, and the URL address you came from upon visiting our Website and the URL you next visit (even if those URLs are not on our Website). We also utilize email web beacons to monitor whether our emails are being delivered and read. We also use these tools to help deliver reader analytics to our authors to give them insight into their readership and help them to improve their content, so that it is most useful for our users.

Analytics/Performance Cookies. JD Supra also uses the following analytic tools to help us analyze the performance of our Website and Services as well as how visitors use our Website and Services:

Facebook, Twitter and other Social Network Cookies. Our content pages allow you to share content appearing on our Website and Services to your social media accounts through the "Like," "Tweet," or similar buttons displayed on such pages. To accomplish this Service, we embed code that such third party social networks provide and that we do not control. These buttons know that you are logged in to your social network account and therefore such social networks could also know that you are viewing the JD Supra Website.

If you would like to change how a browser uses cookies, including blocking or deleting cookies from the JD Supra Website and Services you can do so by changing the settings in your web browser. To control cookies, most browsers allow you to either accept or reject all cookies, only accept certain types of cookies, or prompt you every time a site wishes to save a cookie. It's also easy to delete cookies that are already saved on your device by a browser.

The processes for controlling and deleting cookies vary depending on which browser you use. To find out how to do so with a particular browser, you can use your browser's "Help" function or alternatively, you can visit http://www.aboutcookies.org which explains, step-by-step, how to control and delete cookies in most browsers.

We may update this cookie policy and our Privacy Policy from time-to-time, particularly as technology changes. You can always check this page for the latest version. We may also notify you of changes to our privacy policy by email.

If you have any questions about how we use cookies and other tracking technologies, please contact us at: privacy@jdsupra.com.

See original here:

Small Business Bankruptcy Reforms You Need to Know - JD Supra

Buy Photo

Art Van Furniture has announced it is shutting down and will begin a liquidation sale March 6, according to the Detroit Free Press.(Photo: Brian Wells/Times Herald)

Art Van Furniture has announced it is shutting down and will begin a liquidation sale March 6 at all of its company-owned stores in Michigan, Illinois, Missouri and Ohio.

The company has 141 stores in the U.S., including one in Port Huron Township, according to its website.

Port Huron Township DDA Director Paul Maxwell said Thursday morning he had not heard anything official from the company on its closing.

"I've been concerned about them for some time," Maxwell said.

He doesn't know how many employees are at the store on 32nd Street, but said the facility does a lot of shipping and receiving for other locations as well as retail.

Two calls and an email toDiane Charles, Art Van Furniture spokeswoman,were not immediately returned Thursday.

"Despite our best efforts to remain open, the company's brands and operating performance have been hit hard by a challenging retail environment," Charles saidin a statement.

Read more:

Art Van is expected to declare bankruptcy early next week.The Chapter 11 reorganization filingcould potentially result in the permanent closure and liquidation of all Art Van Furniturestoresunless one or more buyers step forward to rescue the retailer.

The company was sold to a private-equity firm by theVan Elslanderfamilythree years ago.

Maxwell said he hopes the township stores remains in operation.

"I think its important because it's part of our business corridor. They've always done a good job," Maxwell said. "Theyve been a good neighbor and we've enjoyed their progress out there. Im hoping it will continue, even if its under another banner."

The liquidation sales will begin Friday at all Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana and Missouri Art Van Furniture, Art Van PureSleep and Scott Shuptrine Interiors, as well asselect Wolf stores in Maryland and Virginia.

The 75,000-square-foot Port Huron Township store opened in 2002 afterArt Van movedout of its downtown Port Huron location.

St. Clair County bought the former Art Van site on Grand River Avenuein 2014 for $560,000. Officials have yet to decide the location's fate.

Check back for updates.

Contact Liz Shepard at (810) 989-6273 or lshepard@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @lvshepard.

Read or Share this story: https://www.thetimesherald.com/story/news/2020/03/05/art-van-shutter-stores/4962624002/

See the article here:

Art Van announces liquidation sale, expected to declare bankruptcy - The Times Herald