Good day and welcome to WSJ Pro Bankruptcy's Daily Briefing. It's Wednesday, April 2. In today's briefing, the court's rejection of Johnson & Johnson's $8 billion bankruptcy plan underscores the increasing legal resistance to using Chapter 11 for mass tort settlements. And Sunnova has appointed an investment banker at JPMorgan Chase as interim CFO while negotiating a debt restructuring with creditors, and announced it missed an interest payment on its $400 million in senior notes.

Johnson & Johnson’s failure to win approval of an $8 billion bankruptcy plan for its talc liabilities is the latest court ruling to pare back the use of chapter 11 to resolve mass torts and could limit the appeal of bankruptcy for companies looking to drive settlements.

The decision Monday by Houston bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez means that chapter 11 may no longer be a viable option for J&J. Now the healthcare and consumer products giant will go back to the tort system to face the nearly 100,000 lawsuits filed against the company linking its talc baby powder to ovarian and other gynecological cancers.

• Johnson & Johnson pulls Dow Industrials lower. J&J's stock tumbled 6.5% after a bankruptcy judge dismissed an attempt by the healthcare-products company to resolve its mass talc liabilities through chapter 11. That weighed on the 30-stock Dow. J&J's decline recently clipped more than 60 points from the blue-chip average, according to Dow Jones Market Data, accounting for a big chunk of its pullback. — Karen Langley

Sunnova Energy International has appointed an interim chief financial officer as the struggling rooftop solar panel company negotiates a debt restructuring with its creditors.

Sunnova, one of the largest rooftop solar panel installers and financiers in the U.S., on Tuesday said it has named Robyn Liska, an investment banker at the power and renewable energy division of JPMorgan Chase, to lead its finance strategies.

Sunnova also said it would miss an interest payment due Tuesday on its $400 million in senior notes maturing in 2028. Creditors led by Oaktree Capital Management have recently started talking with the company about addressing nearly $1 billion of bonds and convertible notes maturing in 2026, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Aspiration Partners, a climate-finance startup backed by celebrities like Cindy Crawford and Robert Downey Jr., has lined up proposed funding to stay afloat in chapter 11 after federal prosecutors charged a co-founder with fraud.

The San Francisco-based company, which has brokered carbon-credit deals with companies including Microsoft and Meta Platforms, failed to secure a lender after contacting roughly two dozen lenders and existing investors, including junior creditor Oaktree Capital Management, chief restructuring officer Miles Staglik said in a filing Monday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del.

Secured bondholder Inherent Group eventually agreed to provide $18 million in financing, which includes $4.2 million in new money for the company now known as CTN Holdings or Catona, he said. CTN will seek court approval for the financing at a Wednesday hearing.

InterCement’s plan to restructure through a Brazilian bankruptcy proceeding can move forward, a New York judge ruled Monday. The Brazilian cement giant faced opposition from some of its creditors, who argued that the company should have filed in the Netherlands or Spain, where certain of its business entities are incorporated.

In September 2024, InterCement filed an extrajudicial (EJ) recovery plan with Brazil’s government, which would allow it to restructure the company in a manner similar to a prepackaged chapter 11 plan stateside. A group of U.S. bondholders opposed the plan via a lawsuit, expressing concerns about how they would get repaid through the deal.

After InterCement was unable to sell itself through the Brazilian EJ plan, it filed a Brazilian recuperação judicial plan, and sought U.S. recognition of the proceedings via a chapter 15 case. The bondholders who opposed the plan asked the New York bankruptcy court to rule against recognizing the RJ as a “foreign main proceeding,” a distinction that would give InterCement the same protections that a company filing for chapter 11 would receive.

Citing InterCement’s Brazilian operations, the court ruled in InterCement’s favor, and it can now proceed with those protections.   —Alicia McElhaney

China Vanke swung to a net loss in 2024 and warned of intensifying financial pressure ahead as the developer continues to feel the strain of China's years-long property crisis.

The Shenzhen-based developer, one of the biggest property groups in China, reported a net loss of 49.48 billion yuan, equivalent to $6.82 billion, for 2024. That compared with a profit of 12.16 billion yuan a year earlier.

In a filing on Monday, the company attributed the loss to fewer completed and settled projects and gross profit margin of its development business, financial losses, and other factors.

Revenue fell 26% to 343.18 billion yuan in 2024.

Vanke said it faces concentrated repayment of public debts in 2025 that will ramp up the pressure it is already under. The company said it has engaged in "self-rescue" with the support of various parties, but that liquidity risks have not been fully resolved.

The developer said that across China, the total area of residential projects sold declined last year, but that the on-year decline in commercial housing narrowed in the first three quarters before rising in the final quarter of the year, signaling improvement.

Government policy support is also helping restore market confidence, it said.

Chinese officials have been rolling out a string of measures to help lift the ailing property sector and boost homebuying demand, including relaxing purchasing curbs and mortgage rules.

But many property developers are struggling to stay afloat, saddled with big piles of debts and weak demand. An inability to tap debt markets has led to defaults on loans and bond payments, and even bankruptcy.

China Vanke has been receiving support from major state-owned shareholder Shenzhen Metro. The developer said in a filing in February that it secured a $383.3 million loan from the subway operator at interest rate of 2.34%, below China's one-year loan prime rate at 3.1%. Shares in Vanke were last up 1.8%. —Tracy Qu

Travis Perkins shares fell after the company swung to a pretax loss, cut its dividend, and reported a disappointing outlook as the backdrop remains challenging.

Shares in European morning trade were down 12% at 486.2 pence and have fallen nearly a quarter since the start of the year.

The U.K. building-materials retailer said Tuesday that its pretax loss for 2024 was 38.4 million pounds ($49.6 million) compared with a profit of 121.4 million pounds a year earlier.

The drop was mainly due to 139 million pounds related to impairments in its stair business Staircraft and certain Merchanting branches and restructuring actions, it said.

U.S. manufacturing activity fell back into contraction in March, reflecting renewed concerns about cost pressures and demand in light of the uncertainty surrounding the Trump administration’s trade policy.

The Institute for Supply Management said Tuesday that its purchasing managers’ index of manufacturing activity fell to 49.0 in March, from 50.3 in February. That was weaker than the 49.5 from a consensus of economists polled by The Wall Street Journal.

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