Welcome to WSJ Pro Bankruptcy's Daily Briefing. It's Friday, April 10. In today's briefing, Carlyle Group’s flagship private-credit interval fund is the latest to face redemption requests above its 5% cap. Meanwhile, First Brands’ SPV that owned its brake-parts segment received approval to convert to chapter 7, and NOCO said it won't make a bid for the bankrupt auto-parts company's IP brands after previously objecting to the sale.

Carlyle Group’s flagship private-credit interval fund is the latest to be hit with a wave of share-redemption requests, as investor fears about a potential private-credit meltdown continue.

The Carlyle Tactical Private Credit Fund, or CTAC, received repurchase requests amounting to roughly 15.7% of shares outstanding, more than three times the 5% redemption limit that the asset manager has set, the firm revealed in a shareholder letter Thursday.

The fund, which had more than $7 billion in total assets, including leverage, as of late January, has an emphasis on direct lending, which accounts for 41% of the fund’s portfolio, according to its website.

First Brands’ special purpose vehicle that owned its brake parts division has received court approval to convert to chapter 7, another step in winding down the bankrupt auto-parts supplier's assets to repay creditors.

Thursday’s approval follows the failure to find a buyer for the business, which had “no viable path ahead,” according to court records. Lender Evolution said the conversion allows it to halt the accrual of advisory fees and other administrative costs tied to the bankruptcy case.

Meanwhile, NOCO, the auto battery and accessory maker that had objected to First Brands’ IP sale, said it won’t make an offer. In court papers filed Thursday, NOCO said due diligence revealed the assets were “substantially” different than expected, “significantly lowering, if not eliminating,” the value of the intellectual property.

The bankruptcy court had halted the $25 million IP sale to Premium Guard earlier this week after NOCO argued it could make a higher bid than $25 million for Trico, just one of the dozen brands included in the deal.

 —Alicia McElhaney

Most insurance companies got through the 2008 financial crisis all right. A ratings firm just warned the industry may not get through the next one unscathed.

AM Best plans to publish a report later Friday that finds that the investment portfolios of insurers that sell annuities hold more risky debt than they did in 2007, the year before the worst downturn since the Great Depression. The ratings firm also wrote that annuity portfolios had a slightly smaller financial cushion in 2024—the most recent year for which data was available—than they did in 2007.

Clearwater Paper will cut about 20% the workforce at its facility in Cypress Bend, Ark., and said the facility would operate at roughly half of its production capacity.

The company said the restructuring would deliver between $8 million and $12 million in annualized cost savings and won't affect shipment volumes.

Clearwater said the decision was due to a supply-driven downturn in the paperboard-packaging industry that is weighing on cash flows and margins.

"Our Cypress Bend mill is well invested and cost competitive, and we intend to return the mill to full production in the future when SBS industry conditions improve or through an investment in swing CUK capabilities," Chief Executive Arsen Kitch said.

The company said it would provide severance packages, healthcare, and outplacement services to employees affected by the layoffs, adding that it would work with their union through effects bargaining.

—Elias Schisgall

The financial troubles at St. Michael’s College hit home for biology professor Declan McCabe when he noticed Buckthorn shrubs encroaching on walking trails near the house of the campus president.

Enrollment declines opened the door to maintenance staff layoffs, giving the invasive shrub the upper hand. McCabe—a roll-up-your-sleeves, get-it-done Irishman—taught his students to identify the woody plant and cut it back with handsaws and loppers. He turned the chore into lessons on the environment.

Tenured professors doubling as groundskeepers at a $70,000-a-year private college in New England is another sign of what is shaping up as the bleakest era for America’s smaller private schools.

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