Naked River revamps under Chapter 11 filing
Naked River Brewery, which opened near Finley Stadium nearly five years ago, filed a Chapter 11 petition last month to reorganize its finances as a debtor under the protection of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
In an emailed statement, company founder and CEO Jake Raulston said the bankruptcy reorganization is helping Naked River to readjust its strategy and finances coming out of the pandemic when Naked River and other restaurants were forced to shut down and revenues dropped dramatically.
"We used the filing as an opportunity to reset the business," said Raulston, who started Naked River Brewery in November 2018 along with his business partner Nathan Woods. "We operated for one year before having to completely change our business model for COVID. We wanted to come out with a clean slate and move to the top producer. We are well on our way with plenty of beer hitting the market today."
In its Chapter 11 filing, the brewery listed assets of $933,000 and liabilities of $926,000.
Naked River Brewery is one of more than a dozen breweries making and selling beer in Chattanooga.
Chattanooga gas prices rose 8.6 cents last week
Gasoline prices in Chattanooga rose an average of 8.6 cents per gallon in the past week to $3.11 per gallon, according to GasBuddy's survey of 170 stations in Chattanooga.
Gas prices in Chattanooga are up by nearly 22 cents per gallon from a month ago, but the average price of regular gas in Chattanooga at the start of this week was still 29 cents a gallon below the U.S. average and 84.1 cents per gallon lower than a year ago.
The national average price of diesel has fallen 5.9 cents in the past week and stands at $4.19 per gallon, according to GasBuddy.com.
"The national average price of gasoline has seen little overall change over the last week, with big decreases in states like Colorado and Ohio offset by large increases in Arizona and North Carolina," Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said in a report Monday.
TVA sells bonds at 3.875% rates
In its first 5-year bond issue in nearly three years, the Tennessee Valley Authority on Monday priced $1 billion of new 5-year maturity global power bonds with an interest rate of 3.875%.
TVA plans to use the proceeds to pay down other debt and help fund an expanded capital spending program, which is projected to begin to boost the debt of TVA again after TVA borrowings reached a 30-year low. TVA is adding more natural gas and solar power generation and is spending money as well to pursue potential new nuclear, hydrogen and hydroelectric power plants.
Barclays Capital, BofA Securities, Morgan Stanley & Co. and RBC Capital Markets served as joint book-running managers for the transaction.
"The team was pleased to execute this opportunistic transaction for TVA, which was led by strong demand," TVA Treasurer Tammy Wilson said in a statement Monday. "The 5-year tenor fits well in TVA's maturities profile, and we felt that reducing our exposure to the short-term debt markets was prudent in the current environment."
TVA is an independent, self-funding federal utility that no longer receives any direct taxpayer assistance, but the utility does enjoy the implicit backing of the U.S. government.
Fed official blames SVB itself for failure
The nation's top financial regulator is asserting that Silicon Valley Bank's own management was largely to blame for the bank's failure earlier this month and says the Federal Reserve will review whether a 2018 law that weakened stricter bank rules also contributed to its collapse.
"SVB's failure is a textbook case of mismanagement," Michael Barr, the Fed's vice chair for supervision, said in written testimony that will be delivered Tuesday at a Senate hearing.
Barr pointed to the bank's "concentrated business model," in which its customers were overwhelmingly venture capital and high-tech firms in Silicon Valley. He also contends that the bank failed to manage the risks of its bond holdings.
Twitter celebs balk at blue check payments
William Shatner, Monica Lewinsky and other prolific Twitter commentators -- some household names, others little-known journalists -- could soon be losing the blue check marks that helped verify their identity on the social media platform.
They could get the marks back by paying up to $11 a month. But some longtime users, including Star Trek legend Shatner, have balked at buying the premium service championed by Twitter's billionaire owner and chief executive Elon Musk.
After months of delay, Musk is gleefully promising that Saturday is the deadline for celebrities, journalists and others who'd been verified for free to pony up or lose their legacy status. That's raised concerns about how easy it could be to impersonate high-profile users and spread misinformation in their names.
— Compiled by Dave Flessner