Book-cover manufacturer ICG/Holliston has filed for chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., the Associated Press reported yesterday. The nation’s oldest maker of cloth covers for the book industry said in Monday’s filing that it intends to sell its business to an affiliate of Philadelphia buyout firm Chrysalis Capital Partners LP, subject to higher bids at a court-monitored auction. The privately held company, based in Churchill, Tenn., listed assets of $28 million and debts of $27.5 million. Earlier this month, Chrysalis bought ICG/Holliston’s debt previously held by Jackson National Life Insurance Co., a lender to the company. ICG/Holliston owes Chrysalis about $21.5 million from the loan, according to court papers.

The former head of a Dubuque, Iowa-based trucking company has pled guilty to two counts of bankruptcy fraud, the Associated Press reported yesterday. Roger Waldner, former CEO and owner of H&W Motor Express, faces up to 10 years in prison and up to $500,000 in fines. Waldner was indicted on 12 fraud counts last May for driving the 74-year-old company into bankruptcy, including lying to creditors on his bankruptcy petition. He reached a plea deal today, just before trial was to begin in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids. A sentencing hearing is not expected for several months.

The official unsecured creditors’ committee of All American Semiconductor Inc. has asked for a trustee to be appointed or for the case to be converted to chapter 7, alleging that current management is acting for the benefit of the company’s lenders, Bankruptcy Law360 reported yesterday. A trustee, the motion argues, would be able to reassess the strategy of the case, decide how to proceed with any sale and determine whether it is appropriate to convert the case to chapter 7. The unsecured creditors say the continued decline in business and the proposed sale process pose a substantial threat to them. The committee argues that the case should be transferred to chapter 7 because there is no rehabilitation, and any sale will effectively be an asset liquidation.

As a surge of foreclosures over the past year or so has left lenders struggling to sell a growing backlog of homes, some lenders are turning to large-scale auctions to speed up the sale process rather than relying on the usual practice of using real-estate agents, the Wall Street Journal reported today. At a recent auction in San Diego, houses and condos typically sold for about 30 percent below the previous sale or appraisal prices. Jeffrey Frieden, CEO of Irvine, Calif.-based Real Estate Disposition Corp., said that about 90 percent of the homes offered at the San Diego auction were sold. Some deals fell through because buyers couldn’t qualify for financing. Ramsey Su, a San Diego investor and former real-estate broker specializing in foreclosed properties, said prices were surprisingly low on some homes and the auction showed that “demand is not that strong.”

A group of Calpine Corp.’s unsecured creditors have won a hard-fought battle in the company’s chapter 11 case, winning the right to challenge the seniority on $646.11 million in notes held by first-lien noteholders, Bankruptcy Law360 reported yesterday. Judge Burton Lifland of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York ruled in favor of the unsecured creditors’ committee on Thursday, granting their request to question the priority of the holders of notes due in 2014. The unsecured creditors will now have until May 21 to file their formal challenge to the first-lien debt holders. Law Debenture Trust Co. of New York is the trustee for the first-lien debt, and Wilmington Trust Co. is the trustee for the second-lien debt. The term loan agent is Goldman Sachs.

Northwest Airlines said that its creditors overwhelmingly approved its bankruptcy reorganization plan, another key step on its way toward emerging from bankruptcy protection next month, the Associated Press reported yesterday. An unofficial vote tally shows that almost 97 percent of creditors who voted approved the plan, the airline said on Wednesday. Final results will be filed in bankruptcy court in New York later this week. A confirmation hearing on Northwest’s reorganization plan is set to begin May 16, and Northwest has said it expects to emerge from bankruptcy in June. It has been operating under bankruptcy protection since Sept. 14, 2005.

The three biggest unions at Northwest Airlines Corp. objected to the company’s reorganization plan on Monday, saying that its plan to give executives almost 5 percent of the company is too expensive, the Associated Press reported yesterday. The objections came just as unsecured creditors wrapped up voting on the plan, although results of the vote weren’t expected immediately. At Delta Air Lines Inc., results weren’t known for a week after the creditor vote on its chapter 11 case ended. The union objections came in response to Northwest’s disclosure on Friday afternoon that CEO Doug Steenland would get $26.6 million in restricted shares and options after the carrier exits bankruptcy protection. The company had previously disclosed that its top 400 executives would get almost 5 percent of the company. Pilots called the payout an ”incredible grab of value by a few top executives.’

A pair of companies owned by Rudy Giuliani represented both a debtor and a creditor in a recently concluded bankruptcy proceeding, a potential conflict of interest that wasn’t disclosed to the federal judge overseeing the case, the Wall Street Journal reported today.In September 2005, a subsidiary of closely held Giuliani Partners LLC signed a consulting agreement with Delta Air Lines Inc. to provide restructuring advice during the carrier’s bankruptcy reorganization, drawing more than $5 million in fees for the service. In January 2006, a separate Giuliani Partners division, Giuliani Security & Safety,  signed a $2 million consulting deal with Command Security Corp., a provider of security-guard services that had been left with $1 million in unpaid bills when Delta and Northwest Airlines Corp. filed for bankruptcy-court protection in September 2005.There is no evidence in the public record that Giuliani Capital intervened with Delta on behalf of Command Security, the Giuliani Security client, or that any Giuliani company acted unethically in the bankruptcy. In April, Giuliani sold Giuliani Capital to Macquarie Group, an Australian investment bank. Giuliani Capital’s work in the Delta case ceased in February; the contract didn’t transfer to Macquarie. Delta formally emerged from its 19 months under bankruptcy court protection on April 30.

Russian oil producer Rosneft will face only one challenger, a little-known firm called Yunitex, in a major YUKOS bankruptcy auction today, Reuters reported. While Rosneft is said to likely be the winner, analysts suspect its fellow state-controlled energy firm, gas monopoly Gazprom, also wants the assets and may use indirect methods such as an option agreement to buy them. The lot, which has a starting price of 166.3 billion roubles ($6.46 billion), comprises all of YUKOS’s east Siberian assets, including a major oil production unit and two oil refineries. The auction is one of a series which Russia is holding to recover YUKOS’s debts of over $26 billion. Each sale needs at least two bidders to be valid.

Pac-West Telecomm, Inc., a wholesale provider of advanced telecommunications services, announced that it has filed for chapter 11 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, according to a company press release yesterday. In conjunction with the filing, Pac-West Funding Company LLC, an affiliate of Columbia Ventures Corporation (CVC), an existing investor in the company, agreed to provide Pac-West up to $18.5 million in debtor.in.possession (DIP) financing, subject to court approval. The DIP financing is expected to provide Pac-West with approximately $6 million of funding to facilitate its reorganization pursuant to the chapter 11 process. Prior to its chapter 11 filing, the company reduced its workforce by approximately 94 employees (approximately 48 percent of the Company’s aggregate workforce) on Monday.