Todd Teske, the former chairman and CEO of Briggs & Stratton, has filed an $11.6 million claim in the bankruptcy case seeking his share of payments that are likely to be in the range of 7-8 cents on the dollar

Was the Briggs board a mutual protection society for its top executives and, frankly, its members? Or did the board, through no fault of its own, encounter impossible obstacles and have no choice but bankruptcy?

No other prospective buyers submitted qualified bids by the deadline, and it appears Briggs will likely be sold to baseline bidder KPS at $550 million for nearly all of Briggs & Stratton’s assets.

The United Steelworkers union represents about 330 employees at Briggs and the terminations will total about 185 of them, the company said.

A U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge approved Briggs & Stratton Corp.’s proposal for a fast-track sale of the company via auction despite creditors’ objections, while recent court filings show Generac Power Systems remains in the running as a potential bidder.

Under the terms of the agreement, an affiliate of KPS formed for purposes of this transaction has agreed to acquire substantially all of the Company's assets and assume certain customer, employee and vendor liabilities, and it would act as the stalking-horse bidder through a court-supervised sale process.