The mysterious masters (or mischievous monkeys?) who run the trading desk at Aletheia Research & Management continue their daily churn of Barnes & Noble stock, buying and selling strange blocks of shares day after day. But the trend of slimming their position continues; in the reported period since April 25, the firm reduced their holdings to 8.65 percent of all shares, down from about 10.4 percent. In other BN news, the company filed a pre-emptive suit in a San Francisco federal court recently against chipmaker LSI, seeking to protect itself from potential claims of patent infringement in their Nook devices. […]
Legal
Borders Gets More Time To Reorganize
In federal bankruptcy court Wednesday morning, Judge Martin Glenn agreed to extend the exclusive time period in which Borders can come up with a plan for emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy or selling the company’s assets. As previously reported, Borders would have run up against a June 16 deadline to file a plan under an exclusivity period, which has now been extended to October 14, with time to solicit votes on such a plan pushed back to December 13. Borders representative Andrew K. Glenn explained in court that a sale is now the focus of their efforts rather than reorganization, […]
GBS Hearing Pushed Back to July 19 As Parties Seek More Time To Draft New Settlement
In a status conference Wednesday afternoon that lasted all of five minutes, no decisions were made with respect to the Google Book Settlement, as all parties wanted more time to reach some sort of agreement. Bruce Keller, representing the Authors Guild and the AAP and speaking on behalf of “all parties,” told the court that “the parties are still considering options. They have not made any decisions. Everything being discussed between them is on the table.” Judge Chin set a new hearing date of July 19 at 10:00 AM in response to Keller’s assertion that parties would need an additional […]
REDGroup Fails to Reach Deal With Creditors, Will Stop Taking Stock on June 1
The bankruptcy saga of REDGroup Retail appears to be in its closing stages thanks to a number of developments over the weekend. Administrators Ferrier Hodgson failed to reach an agreement with creditors on a reorganization plan, laid off an additional 34 employees at REDGroup’s Melbourne headquarters, and on Monday informed suppliers that the company’s remaining stores in Australia would not accept stock after June 1, with any orders made on books not yet delivered should be cancelled. In a letter to landlords and suppliers, REDGroup’s administrators said they had hoped to find a way to keep the remaining 9 Borders […]
Creditors Oppose Borders Bid For More Time, and Seattle’s Best Objects to Contract Cancellation
Borders’ unsecured creditors committee objected to the bookseller’s bid for more time to come up with a plan to exit Chapter 11 in a court filing Thursday afternoon on several grounds. They are “gravely concerned” that extending the exclusivity period up to 120 days “could be detrimental to the interests of the debtors’ general unsecured creditors” and would only work if the committee itself could have the right to “file and solicit a plan at any time” (the unstated purpose of which would likely be to ask for liquidation, though they cite cases in which creditors did draft their own […]
Borders Wants Extension on Filing and Soliciting Chapter 11 Exit Strategy
Yesterday in bankruptcy court Borders filed a motion asking for an extension on their exclusive period to file (and receive approval) for a reorganization or sale. The current deadline to file a plan is June 16, but Borders wants another four months (also extending the deadline for approval to December 13). In the motion, Borders acknowledges what the creditors have been underscoring since the original court skirmish over the booksellers’ debtor-in-possession financing plan: “if the Debtors are not granted the requested extension of their Exclusive Periods and exclusivity is terminated, they will be in default under their DIP Credit Agreement.” […]