2023 Valcon

What is a DSO, and what does that bankruptcy provision in every Property Settlement Agreement mean, anyway? What debts are dischargeable, and if it is called “support,” is it truly support? Does the stay need to be modified post-petition in a chapter 13, and what do you do when a current chapter 13 client ends up in divorce court? This panel will address these questions and more, including the differences between chapters 7 and 13, and what actions are stayed. 

TestIndependent board directors play a vital and increasingly important role in restructurings. Acting as an independent director has great rewards, but it also has risks in today’s restructuring environment. This panel will analyze and discuss a variety of issues related to corporate governance in restructurings and liquidations, including (a) the recruitment, appointment, role and duties of independent directors, (b) how to establish an independent board of directors, (c) the role of lawyers and financial professionals in advising a board of directors and independent directors, and (d) D&O claims, insurance and potential risks to independent directors.

ABI, the Association of Insolvency & Restructuring Advisors (AIRA) and our distinguished advisory board wecome you to VALCON 2023 at the Ritz-Carlton New Orleans, located in New Orleans’ French Quarter. Taking place this year during the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, VALCON 2023 is THE place to connect with leaders in the distressed-debt, restructuring and valuation industries. Dealmakers, fund investors, and financial and legal advisors, this is one conference you should not miss! Valuation professionals can expect advanced discussions and fresh perspectives on timely topics to help them navigate the shifting sands of valuation in bankruptcy today.

This session will discuss crypto asset and exchange valuation parameters and deal structures, and how investors and analysts alike were duped by FTX and its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, to invest in his multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. SBF had painted himself as an industry saint, but he now acknowledges the firm's “massive failure of oversight of risk management.” The panelists will analyze 2022's largest crypto failures — FTX, BlockFi, Three Arrows Capital, Voyager Digital and Celsius Network — and will address their crypto asset valuation parameters, forensic data sources, trading models, likely stakeholder recoveries, failures of internal controls, current and likely future regulatory controls, and corporate integrity and governance protocols in order to understand how these virtual currencies rose and subsequently collapsed.

Determining the valuation of a startup poses unique challenges, as typical valuation methodologies, such as analyzing comparable companies, precedent transactions and discounted cash flow analyses, cannot be applied with the same degree of confidence to a company that is lacking an established track record. This panel will examine these challenges and provide insights into valuing a startup from financial, legal and judicial perspectives.

This session will be divided into three 25-minute mini-panels, with each segment featuring two industry experts from the automotive, real estate and skilled nursing/senior care industries, respectively. The panelists will highlight the latest hurdles these often unpredictable businesses face in a volatile post-COVID-19 economy, including the effects of inflation, ongoing staffing and supply chain issues, potential liquidity crunches and other challenges.

This panel will focus on the current state of the capital markets and their impact on corporate refinance and restructuring opportunities. Given recent economic events, including inflation, interest rate hikes and their ramifications on the financial sectors, the panelists will discuss and explore those events and how they could affect the ability of companies to access the capital markets. The panelists also will explore how access to the capital markets could force a company to restructure or refinance existing obligations given the recent history of low interest rates and easy access to funding.

Join Mr. Pauker as he shares his perspectives on the recent turmoil in the banking and financial services industry, including what lessons can be learned by comparing recent events to those surrounding the S&L crisis and the 2008 financial crisis.

For nearly 100 years, we have not experienced a shock to the economy where large numbers of industries exhibited disastrous declines in revenues resulting from a pandemic. Frankly, none of us were equipped with readily available valuation frameworks to handle such shocking changes in cash-flow projections, discount rates, the ‘appropriate’ use of comparable companies and the relevant transactions to be used in the M&A comparable method. This panel discussion will present the main valuation parameters that have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated legal and experts’ battles, mostly during and post-pandemic.