Reorganization plan ignoring creditors?

Pacific Northwest

Metropolitan Mortgage

An attorney for creditors of Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities blasted the bankrupt Spokane company's newest reorganization plan, saying it fails to give creditors some control over the costs of liquidating the remaining assets.

"The debtors have essentially eliminated any real oversight role by the creditors," complained attorney P.J. Grabicki of Spokane yesterday.

The liquidation costs are expected to run into the millions of dollars for attorney fees and other expenses.

A Met Mortgage spokesman could not be reached for comment.

The plan, filed late last week, would liquidate the companies' remaining assets and distribute them to creditors through two new trusts.

Grabicki said that creditors agree that liquidation is the best route for recovering some of their investments, but that it's not clear whether they will ratify the current plan. A vote date has not been set.

Nation and World

Ford

Company backs off on 2006 profit goal

Ford yesterday lowered full-year profit guidance due to difficult business conditions in the automotive sector, and doesn't expect to reach its goal of $7 billion in total company pretax profits by 2006.

The company released the revised forecast after the end of the regular trading session, which saw Ford shares fall 27 cents to close at $11.03. In extended trading, Ford shares fell an additional 54 cents.

AmerisourceBergen

Subpoena issued to drug distributor

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has issued subpoenas to one of the nation's three largest drug distributors in what appears to be a probe into the way the companies buy drugs from each other.

AmerisourceBergen, of Chesterbrook, Pa., in a filing Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, said one of its subsidiaries had received a subpoena from Spitzer's office.

The document requests information on the manner and degree to which AmerisourceBergen buys drugs from other wholesalers, in what is often referred to as the "alternate source market," the company said.

Sony / MGM

Studio ends run as independent player

The sale of venerable film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to a consortium led by Sony of America was completed yesterday, marking the end of MGM as an independent player in the entertainment industry.

Sony and consortium partner Comcast will gain access to MGM's library of more than 4,000 movies. Comcast says it will use the films on its video-on-demand service and as the basis for new cable channels.

Compiled from The Associated Press