Court Approves New Loan for Carter Hawley : Reorganization: The retailer hopes the $550 million in financing will give its suppliers renewed confidence in the firm.

Carter Hawley Hale Stores won bankruptcy court approval Monday for $550 million in fresh financing, completing an $800-million loan package that the company is using to run its business and reorganize.

The money could help Carter Hawley win back holdouts among its suppliers that have balked at resuming shipments to the Los Angeles company since it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy court protection on Feb. 11. Carter Hawley went into bankruptcy after shipments were curbed by suppliers who were angry about the retailer’s late bill payments or worried about its prospects.

Analysts have predicted that Carter Hawley, owner of the Broadway-Southern California and the biggest department store company in the West, eventually will need to divest one or more of its four retail chains if it is to emerge from bankruptcy.

But by winning court approval, as expected, for all of its bankruptcy financing from New York-based Chemical Bank, Carter Hawley has averted what could have been an immediate crisis.

The previously approved $250 million in financing was “not much money for a company of this size. They needed the (additional) $550 million to get vendor confidence,” said Robert F. Carbonell, director of credit for Dun & Bradstreet’s Credit Clearing House division, which advises apparel firms.

In a news release, Philip M. Hawley, Carter Hawley’s chairman and chief executive, said the newly approved funds give the company “the necessary permanent financing . . . to proceed through its reorganization process.”

Hawley said company executives are “extremely pleased” by “the increasing flow of merchandise” Carter Hawley is receiving from suppliers.

“We are moving toward normal inventory levels in virtually all merchandise categories and, based on the rate of vendor shipments, expect to be at fully stocked . . . over the next few weeks,” he said.

William Fiore, president of Local 1100 of the Department Store Employees Union in San Francisco, said employees at the two Bay Area Emporium department stores his local represents have noticed an increase lately in merchandise being received from suppliers.

He also welcomed word of the approval of the $550 million in bankruptcy financing, saying “Carter Hawley needs every bit of money it can get to keep running. Any infusion of capital at this point helps, if it is spent wisely.”

The company announced approval of the bankruptcy financing shortly before the close of the stock markets. In trading on the New York Stock Exchange, Carter Hawley shares were unchanged at $1.75, just above their all-time low of $1.125 and down from a 52-week high of $7.75. The company’s junk bonds climbed slightly.

Sources close to Carter Hawley, meanwhile, say the company is working on a plan to consolidate some of the administrative operations of its San Francisco-based Emporium chain and its Sacramento-based Weinstocks division. If the plan is eventually proposed by the company and approved by the bankruptcy court, it likely would mean the elimination of an undetermined number of jobs in Northern California.

A Carter Hawley spokesman declined to comment on the plan.