Unsecured Creditors

Baltimore Marine Industries Inc., the struggling shipyard that was once part of the Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s Sparrows Point complex, has run out of financial lifelines and will be sold or auctioned Nov. 5. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court hired Michael Fox International Inc. to find a buyer for the property and the equipment, the auctioneer said yesterday. The Owings Mills auction house was hired a month ago but just got its marketing campaign into full swing. Bryan Goodman, a Fox project manager, said yesterday that the firm is compiling a list of prospective buyers, including other shipyards.

LAWRENCE, Mass. - Factory owner Aaron Feuerstein sought yesterday to delay a court deadline to buy back control of bankrupt Malden Mills Industries Inc. on favorable terms, though a representative for the company's unsecured creditors vowed to fight the proposal. The legal skirmish is the latest in the struggle for control over Malden Mills and its 1,200 jobs. The company is scheduled to emerge from bankruptcy Sept. 10, and under the terms of its reorganization plan Feuerstein needs to raise at least $92 million to buy back the majority of the company once owned by his family.

Magellan Health Services said yesterday that a federal bankruptcy court judge had approved its disclosure statement, the step in the corporate-bankruptcy process that leads to a vote by creditors on a plan to reorganize a company. The bankruptcy judge's approval of this disclosure statement is just one of several steps remaining ahead of Magellan as the Columbia mental health insurer works to emerge from federal bankruptcy protection. However, if all goes according to plan, the firm could be in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan as early as Oct. 8, asking a federal judge to give final approval of its reorganization plan.

WORCESTER, Mass. - Malden Mills Industries Inc., the Lawrence, Mass., maker of fleece outerwear whose chief executive earned national attention for guiding the company through recovery from a devastating 1995 fire, will emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy Aug. 26 under an agreement approved yesterday by a Worcester Bankruptcy Court judge. The company, which has been in talks with its creditors since December, said its expansion into new markets such as defense and hunting and fishing wear has enabled it to turn a profit.

NEW YORK -Warren E. Buffett's $579 million cash bid for Burlington Industries Inc. is opposed by a majority of unsecured creditors, financier Wilbur L. Ross Jr. said yesterday. "Buffett is famous for buying dollar bills for 50 cents," Ross said in an interview. "We believe his offer is inadequate and apparently so do a number of other unsecured creditors." Ross, whose W.L. Ross & Co. LLC holds 25 percent of Burlington's unsecured debt, is vying with Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. for control of the company, now in bankruptcy proceedings.

Bethlehem Steel Corp. could get an offer for all or part of its assets as early as tomorrow, but any offer would allow for only a "relatively modest" recovery for many of the bankrupt company's creditors, a potential buyer said. "The probabilities are that we'll make a bid," said Wilbur L. Ross Jr., head of W.L. Ross & Co., a New York investment firm, and chairman of Cleveland-based International Steel Group Inc. "Everyday we get a little further along ... and we haven't found a total showstopper" that would dash an offer.

Lawyers for a group of bondholders and other creditors of Adelphia Communications asked a bankruptcy court yesterday to restrict payments of several hundred million dollars promised to Adelphia's banks. In a filing late yesterday, lawyers for the unsecured creditors said the banks should not receive $300 million in interest payments promised in connection with a proposed $1.5 billion debtor-in-possession financing. Under debtor-in-possession financing, the lenders who provide the money for continuing operations are first in line among creditors with claims on the company's assets.

NEW YORK - PSINet Inc., the former high-flying Internet service provider that filed for Chapter 11 protection last year after a string of acquisitions, will be liquidated now that it has obtained approval from a bankruptcy judge. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Gerber approved a liquidation that will return about 10 cents on the dollar to PSINet's bondholders and general unsecured creditors. Those creditors are owed more than $4 billion. "The plan is feasible," Gerber said in court papers filed yesterday.

THE balance on credit cards for Caryn Mitchell and her husband had reached $21,600. Something had to give, so two years ago she enrolled in a debt-management program offered by a nonprofit she found on the Internet. After more than a year into the program, Mitchell received a $20,000 loan from a friend and instructed OmniDebt Solutions Inc. to use most of the money to pay off her cards. Weeks passed, she said, and a creditor called to say the checks from OmniDebt were returned because of insufficient funds.

Creditors of TidePoint Corp. have filed to force the company into involuntary liquidation under Chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code just two months after the Baltimore provider of e-commerce services laid off two-thirds of its staff and pledged to become a software company. In the petition filed Wednesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Baltimore, three creditors reported that TidePoint owed them a total of about $1.3 million. The Allied Group Inc., of Glastonbury, Conn., claimed bills of $914,770 for computer hardware and software.