Replies to post #24235 on AbitibiBowater, Inc. (fka ABWTQ)

[emailjanum]

By Peg Brickley
Federal bankruptcy watchdogs say Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin failed to file a timely report of its ties to two of three investment funds that financed the bankruptcy of Aventine Renewable Energy Holdings.

The late disclosure should cost the financial-advisory firm half of the nearly $5 million it is seeking for work as Aventine’s financial adviser, U.S. trustee Roberta A. DeAngelis said in a filing Wednesday in the Wilmington, Del., bankruptcy court.

“We believe the firm’s actions were consistent with established bankruptcy rules and requirements,” Houlihan Lokey said Thursday in a statement released through spokesman Michael Utley.

Aventine was one of the many biofuels producers that piled into bankruptcy in recent years, a casualty of a squeeze in the capital markets and a decline in the price people were willing to pay for ethanol, a gasoline additive.

The company’s Chapter 11 case started off with excitement in the spring of 2009, as hedge funds connected to Whitebox Advisors LLC, Brigade Capital Management and Nomura Corporate Research and Asset Management jousted successfully with banks over the right to offer Chapter 11 financing.

[Little Fish in Pond]

David Paterson, I have nothing to lose in tossing my grenades, but AbitibiBowater (and others) may suffer some damage in the public eye, and the disclosures may force regulatory bodies to act when the information becomes public.

The internal investigation that you initiated in June, based on a letter that you perceived as a threat, has not resulted in any information coming back to me, to know that the required information was given to the required regulatory bodies.

I have "three beans to spill" on three different events.

Let me know if you want to talk to me. The first "grenade" will be thrown on Tuesday, unless I hear from you or your designate by Monday 4 pm.