Mall owners close to buying retailer JC Penney Venezuelan gas lines surge again
Deal could save roughly 70,000 jobs, avoid liquidation As Iranian tankers go undercover
NEW YORK, Sept 10, (AP): Mall owners Simon Property Group and Brookfield Property Partners are close to a deal to buy department store chain J.C. Penney out of bankruptcy and keep the chain running.
Penney’s lawyer Josh Sussberg announced the tentative pact, which will save roughly 70,000 jobs and avoid liquidation, during a brief hearing in bankruptcy court Wednesday.
Sussberg said that the Penney would have an enterprise value of $1.75 billion, including $300 million in cash from the two landlords and $500 million in new debt.
He noted that a letter of intent including more details of the pact will be filed with the bankruptcy court in the next day. Penney will be left with $1 billion in cash after the deal is completed, he said.
“We are all committed to moving this quickly and saving J.C. Penney,” Sussberg said during the court hearing.
The 118-year-old department store based in Plano, Texas, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in midMay, one of the biggest retailers to do so since the pandemic temporarily shut down non-essential stores around the country. As part of its bankruptcy reorganization, Penney said it planned to permanently close nearly a third of its 846 stores in the next two years. That would leave it with just over 600 locations.
More than 40 retailers have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this year, including more than two dozen retailers since the coronavirus outbreak. Among the hardest hit have been department stores, which were already struggling to respond to shoppers’ shift to online shopping.
CARACAS, Venezuela, Sept 10, (AP): Gasoline shortages have returned to Venezuela, sparking mile-long lines in the capital as international concerns mounted Tuesday that Iran yet again may be trying to come to the South American nation’s rescue.
Three Iranian tankers that delivered gasoline to Venezuela earlier this year have turned off their location tracking devices for up to three weeks, raising suspicions among global ship trackers that the tankers are again headed to Iran’s ally.
Iran uses cloaking to evade detection by the United States, which seeks to block shipments to Venezuela in a campaign aimed at forcing socialist President Nicolás Maduro from power.
Samir Madani, a co-founder of the independent oil tracking firm TankerTrackers.com, said it is possible the three ships could make the entire journey to Venezuela with their transponders off.
“Frankly, it wouldn’t surprise me now at this point, given that the Iranians experiment on a weekly basis with new evasive tactics,” said Madani, who tracks shipments with satellite imagery and maritime tracking data. “They’re really good at that. The best, actually.”
Venezuela holds the world’s largest oil reserves, yet it is unable to refine enough crude to meet its domestic needs. Maduro’s government blames crippling U.S. sanctions, while critics say two decades of corruption and mismanagement
under socialist rule have left the nation once-thriving oil industry in ruins.
It is unclear whether Iran is attempting to send gasoline in its ships - the Forest, Fortune and Faxon. The Iranian Embassy in Caracas did not respond to a request for comment by The Associated Press.
If so, this would be the third time this year that Iran has sent fuel shipments to Venezuela in a partnership between the
two nations that are both targeted by the United States as having authoritarian regimes.
Venezuelan authorities in May celebrated the arrival of five Iranian tankers loaded with gasoline, sending fighter jets to greet them entering Caribbean waters and playing Iran’s national anthem on state TV. That delivery allowed the gas pumps to provide fuel with little or no lines.