Welcome to WSJ Pro Bankruptcy's Daily Briefing. It's Monday, July 21. In today's briefing, Aleon Metals has hired restructuring lawyers from Morrison & Foerster to help address financial and operational challenges, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal. 

Aleon Metals, a metals recycler and processor, has tapped restructuring lawyers from Morrison & Foerster to advise on efforts to revamp its troubled balance sheet, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Freeport, Texas-based private company has struggled with operational issues, the people said. Aleon is considering a potential sale to an outside investor as part of its restructuring or handing over control of the company to its creditors, according to one of the people.

Aleon and Morrison & Foerster didn’t respond to requests for comment.

When a tiny mutual fund dumped bonds recently, the low prices it got affirmed an alarming reality for investors in risky municipal debt: Many securities turn out to be worth less than shareholders have been told.

Shares of Easterly Asset Management’s high-yield muni fund in early June cost about $6, based on Easterly’s estimated value for each bond in the fund. But many of those bonds hadn’t traded in years. And when Easterly began rapidly selling some last month, buyers weren’t willing to pay nearly the amount fund managers had estimated.

An Easterly spokeswoman said true price discovery is only possible when bonds trade in the market.

In France’s Provence region late last year, a group of men entered Château de Chausse, the 138-acre home and vineyard of Charles Cohen. While the New York real estate tycoon was away, the men scoured the palatial house, taking high-priced artworks, furniture, and Cohen’s collection of fine wines.

They were not thieves. The men were following orders of the French court, and they seized hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Cohen’s personal belongings in the chateau on behalf of Fortress Investment Group.

Fortress says it was simply taking what it is owed. In 2022, the New York-based investment firm made a $535 million loan to Cohen Realty Enterprises as a way to consolidate his previous debt. Cohen’s collateral included a Manhattan office tower, the Le Méridien Dania Beach hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and three other properties, according to records from New York state supreme court, where Fortress is suing Cohen.

One of biotech’s highest fliers, Sarepta Therapeutics, lost more than a third of its market value on Friday after executives said that one of its experimental gene-replacement therapies was linked to the death of a 51-year-old man last month who received the treatment in a clinical trial. It is the third death linked to a Sarepta gene therapy so far this year. The 51-year-old patient who died suffered from limb girdle muscular dystrophy, a group of genetic disorders that cause muscles to weaken and waste away, Sarepta executives told analysts Friday.

Putting private equity into Americans’ 401(k) accounts could set off a wave of lawsuits from class-action attorneys who specialize in suing companies over excessive retirement-plan fees, lawyers say.

Private-equity firms, which typically manage money for big institutions and the rich, are now knocking at the door of the U.S.’s roughly $12.2 trillion defined-contribution retirement industry. Large 401(k) managers and administrators—Vanguard, BlackRock, Voya Financial and Empower—say they plan to introduce private assets into target-date retirement funds.

Share your tips, suggestions and feedback with the WSJ Pro Bankruptcy team: Soma Biswas; Alexander Gladstone; Jodi Xu Klein; Akiko Matsuda; Andrew Scurria; Becky Yerak. 

Follow us on Twitter: @SomaBisWSJ; @gladstonea; @jodixu; @AskAkiko; @AndrewScurria; @beckyyerak.