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Associated Press | Mall owner Simon Property Group Inc. sweetened its offer to buy out its struggling rival General Growth Properties Inc. on Wednesday, trying to best a group of investors bidding for the company.
Two months after its hostile bid valued at $10 billion was rejected, Simon said it will match a dueling offer for the real estate investment company and invest $2.5 billion into its reorganization.
By Sandra M. Jones
| General Growth Properties Inc., the shopping mall owner in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, named Chicago real estate veteran Sheli Rosenberg to its board of directors.
Rosenberg was most recently CEO, president and vice chairman of Equity Group Investments LLC, the privately-held real estate investment firm run by real estate mogul Sam Zell. Rosenberg joined Equity Group in 1980 as general counsel. She left the company in 2003 and has been an adjunct professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Business. She also sits on the boards of CVS Caremark Corp., Nanonsphere Inc., Veritas Inc. and Equity LifeStyle Properties Inc. Rosenberg is also a trustee at Equity Residential.
The appointment brings the number of directors on General Growth’s board to ten.
Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary. (Julien Warnand/AFP/Getty Images)
Tribune staff report | Budget airline Ryanair says aircraft manufacturer Boeing Co. balked at
its request for planes with more seats and fewer toilets over concerns
the revised seating plan would compromise passenger safety.
Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary says he still hopes to convince
Boeing that removing two toilets and adding six seats would not slow
down emergency evacuations.
By Michael Oneal |
WILMINGTON — Fresh from striking a hard-won compromise deal among many
of its key creditor constituencies, Chicago-based Tribune Co. took one
step forward and another one back at a hearing before a U.S. Bankruptcy
judge in Delaware Tuesday.
Presiding over a courtroom packed with almost 100 lawyers and
associates, Judge Kevin Carey blessed Tribune Co.’s exclusive right to
press ahead with its recently filed settlement plan, rejecting a request
to file a competing plan that came from a large group of disgruntled
creditors led by distressed bond investor Oaktree Capital Management.
By Michael Oneal | A U.S bankruptcy judge in Delaware granted Tribune Co.’s request for
continued exclusivity in its 16-month-old Chapter 11 case, rejecting a
plea from a large group of creditors led by distressed bond investor
Oaktree Capital that it be allowed to file a competing restructuring
plan.
Tribune Co. filed its plan on April 12 with the support of a range of
junior and senior creditors. It grants the holders of the company’s
senior debt 91.5 percent of Tribune Co.’s value. Junior bondholders
would get 7.4 percent.
By Becky Yerak | Chicago-based Berry Chill LLC, one of at least four operators that debuted here in 2008 as the frozen yogurt industry enjoyed a resurgence, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, saying it signed some “bad leases” and needs to reorganize.
Berry Chill began operations in March 2008. Its locations include its first and flagship location at 635 N. State St., as well as 132 N. LaSalle St., and Ogilvie Station at 500 W. Madison.
Michael Farah, chief executive, founder and self-described “Yogurteur,”
said he wants to bring in new investors but to do so needs “to clean
the slate a little bit with some of our issues.”
By Michael Oneal | After 16 months in bankruptcy court, Chicago-based Tribune Co. filed a restructuring plan Monday that would officially transfer control of the media conglomerate from real estate magnate Sam Zell to a group of large banks and hedge funds led by JPMorgan Chase and distressed debt investor Angelo, Gordon & Co.
But even before Tribune Co. lawyers could put the final touches on the documents, a large group of disgruntled senior creditors in the case led by Oaktree Capital Management attacked a settlement proposal at the heart of the plan and asked the court for permission to file an alternative restructuring scheme.
A Best Buy opening in New York in March 2010. (JB Reed/Bloomberg)
By Sandra M. Jones | The demise of Circuit City has been a boon to rivals Best Buy and Wal-Mart, according to a report released Monday from NPD Group.
Best Buy Co. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. combined captured two-thirds of Circuit City Stores Inc.’s total dollar market share from March through December 2009, after Circuit City went out of business, the report said.
By Phil Rosenthal and Michael Oneal | Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co. has brokered an agreement with its major creditors that will allow it to file its reorganization plan with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware by Tuesday.
The agreement, announced today, would give a contentious group of junior creditors, led by distressed-debt investor Centerbridge Partners, a 7.4 percent slice of the company. The agreement also is supported by the unsecured creditors committee, which is expected to drop its motion asking for permission to sue the company over the propriety of Tribune Co.’s 2007 leveraged buyout.
That litigation threatened to pitch the bankruptcy case into a legal morass that could have delayed Tribune Co.’s emergence from Chapter 11.
From Bloomberg | More finger-pointing from the creditors of the bankrupt Tribune Co., which owns the Chicago Tribune and L.A. Times newspapers, took place Thursday. The creditors are now claiming that Tribune Co. officers approved a flawed leveraged buyout because they got “special monetary incentives.”
Get the full story: bloomberg.com.
From Reuters | The investor battle over General Growth, the second-largest U.S. mall owner in the U.S., continues to grow more complicated. Pershing Square Capital Management and investment manager Fairholme Capital Management have committed about $3.9 billion to help General Growth exit bankruptcy as a stand-alone company, and while General Growth has accepted their offer and presented it to bankruptcy court for approval, it’s far from a done deal. Rival suitors are expected to jump into the fray this month.
Get the full story: reuters.com.
By Michael Oneal |
A group of senior creditors in the Tribune Co. bankruptcy case charged Friday that the company’s largest junior bondholder was also part of a group led by California’s Chandler family that sought to buy the Chicago-based media conglomerate in 2007.
The charge is an attempt to blunt a legal strategy pressed by the junior bondholder, Centerbridge Partners, that aims to invalidate more than $8.6 billion in senior claims, leaving more for the junior creditors.
The heart of the junior creditor strategy is to show that a 2007
leveraged buyout orchestrated by Chicago real estate magnate Sam Zell
and financed by a bank group led by JPMorgan Chase was a case of
fraudulent conveyance, meaning the $8.2 billion transaction left the
company insolvent from the start.
Associated Press | General Growth Properties Inc. asked a
bankruptcy court judge late Wednesday to approve a plan for its exit
from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection that gives the shopping mall
giant until the end of the year to court buyout offers.
If approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper in New York, the
plan also would set a floor on offers for General Growth at $15 a
share. That’s higher than a $9 a share offer from rival Simon Property
Group Inc. that General Growth rejected last month.
From Bloomberg | General Growth Properties Inc.’s proposal to exit bankruptcy will compel Brookfield to stay as a backup investor, thanks to a clause that gives the mall operator until the end of 2010 to
complete a takeover deal with another party.
Get the full story: businessweek.com.
By Michael Oneal |
With the clock ticking on a March 31 deadline, Tribune Co. bought more
time to negotiate with its fractious creditors Wednesday when it filed a
motion in Delaware bankruptcy court to extend until April 30 its
exclusive right to propose a reorganization plan in its 15-month-old
Chapter 11 case.
Any extension of the “exclusivity period” would require a judge’s
approval. But the move takes advantage of a quirk in Delaware law, which
allows Tribune Co. to file the motion and essentially freeze
exclusivity until the next scheduled court hearing April 13.
