Under Bankruptcy Rule 1007(a)(3), the Debtors are required to file Equity Lists “within 14 days after entry of the order for relief.” Fed. R. Bankr. P. 1007(a)(3). Under Bankruptcy Rule 2002(d), unless otherwise ordered by the Court, the Debtors are required to give notice of the order for relief to all equity security holders.
15. Each of the Debtors, aside from Foresight Energy LP (“FELP”), has disclosed its equity security holders in the Equity Lists filed with their respective petitions. FELP, however, is a limited partnership with two tranches of limited partnership units (its “LP Units”): its common LP Units (the “Common Units”), which trade over-the-counter, and its subordinated LP Units (the “Subordinated Units”), which are entirely owned by non-Debtor affiliate Murray Energy Corporation (“Murray Energy”). In addition to its 100% ownership of the Subordinated Units, Murray Energy owns 12.1% of the Common Units. The estate of Christopher Cline and the Cline Trust Company own 25.3% and 25.4% of the Common Units, respectively. The remaining Common Unit-holders include unidentified public unitholders (the “Public Unitholders”) and executives and officers of FELP’s general partner, Foresight Energy GP LLC.
16. Given that FELP’s Common Units are widely held and will require the assistance of third-party professionals to determine, the Debtors submit that (a) listing Public Unitholders on FELP’s Equity List, along with their last-known addresses and percentage equity ownership, and (b) sending notices to all parties on that Equity List would be expensive and time-consuming. The Debtors request that the Court authorize FELP to provide an Equity List
17. In addition, the Debtors propose to publish, as soon as practicable after the commencement of these chapter 11 cases, the notice of commencement (“Notice of Commencement”) in the The New York Times and the St. Louis Post Dispatch, a St. Louis, Missouri newspaper. The Debtors are confident that these publications, coupled with the national attention these chapter 11 cases will surely receive, will most likely reach the equity
security holders.
18. The Debtors further submit that, to the extent it is determined that equity
security holders are entitled to distributions from the Debtors’ estates, those parties will be provided with notice of the bar date and will then have an opportunity to assert their interests. Thus, equity security holders will not be prejudiced.
19. This Court has granted relief similar to the relief requested herein in other
chapter 11 cases. See, e.g., In re Noranda Aluminum, Inc., No. 16-10083 (BSS) (Bankr. E.D.
Mo. Feb. 10, 2016) [Docket No.: 82]; In re Arch Coal, Inc., No. 16-40120 (CER) (Bankr. E.D.
Mo. Jan. 13, 2016) [Docket No.: 76].
C. The Court Should Allow the Debtors to File a Consolidated List
