Home furnishings retailer Levitz Furniture yesterday sought bankruptcy court protection for the third time in just over 10 years in an effort to stay in business despite a lack of cash, the Associated Press reported yesterday. Levitz chapter 11 filing comes amid tough times for the furniture business, which along with homebuilders, construction suppliers and financial firms has been hit by the housing downturn. Forecasters expect U.S. consumer spending on furniture and bedding to grow by just 1.5 percent this year, making it the industry’s worst showing since 2001, according to a projection compiled by the trade journal Furniture Today. Levitz, previously known as Levitz Home Furnishings Inc., filed for chapter 11 protection in September 1997 and emerged in February 2001. During another entry into bankruptcy in October 2005, the New York-based company closed about 35 stores in the Northeast, California, Minnesota and Arizona.
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United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger and his lieutenants will meet this afternoon with local union leaders in hopes of building support for a tentative contract reached with Ford Motor Co. over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The agreement, which is regarded as a landmark concessionary deal that will help the company better compete against Asia-based rivals, must now be ratified by a majority of the 54,000 UAW-represented employees at Ford. Ford’s agreement gives the auto maker greater concessions in terms of wages and retiree health care funding than the union granted to General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC. With the proposed contract’s flexibility, Ford will reportedly seek to buy out an additional 10,000 to 14,000 people in the next three years. The tentative pact also allows Ford to unload billions in retiree health care obligations from its books to a union-run trust fund, known as a voluntary employees’ beneficiary association, or VEBA. Ford’s current retiree health care obligation stands at about $22 billion.
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Standard Chartered Bank is demanding that Enron Corp.’s bankruptcy estate pay it an additional $2.7 million on top of the $24.5 million the bank has already received as part of a settlement, the Associated Press reported yesterday. The British bank asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan to order Enron to pay the money, which covers claims the bank has against three other Enron entities, according to court documents filed Wednesday. Standard Chartered Bank was part of a syndicate of banks that loaned money to Enron, now known as Enron Creditors Recovery Corp. Under a 2005 agreement, the bank received a $24.5 million claim against Enron Corp. However, the bank says that the agreement didn’t apply to its claims against the other entities that borrowed money from the bank: Enron North America Corp., Enron Power Marketing Inc. and EPC Estate Services Inc.