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The Morning After: Coping with the Consequences of the Failed LBO/Leveraged Recap Transaction
Was the deal ill-conceived? Was the borrower undercapitalized/overleveraged? Was it the victim of intervening circumstances and unforeseeable events? In today’s covenant-light world, more financial players and operating companies’ owners are availing themselves of relatively accessible credit facilities to cash in on the perceived value of entities with attractive balance sheets. But what happens if the company later fails and ends up in bankruptcy? Are redeeming shareholders really supposed to be the guarantors of the deal’s success?
Issues in Individual Chapter 11 Cases
Individual chapter 11 cases pose a number of thorny legal and practical problems for the bankruptcy practitioner. While individual chapter 11 cases contain many elements of corporate chapter 11 and chapter 13 cases, they do not fit comfortably in either chapter. Following the enactment of BAPCPA, courts have struggled to strike the appropriate balance between the provisions of the Bankruptcy Code intended for corporations and those intended for human beings. The result is substantial uncertainty for debtors and creditors alike. This session will explore: Does the absolute priority rule apply to individual chapter 11 debtors? May creditors commence an involuntary chapter 11 case against an individual? May individual chapter 11 debtors pay their living expenses in the ordinary course of business, or is notice and a hearing required? What are the advantages and disadvantages for debtors and creditors in an individual chapter 11 case as compared to a corporate chapter 11 case or a chapter 13 case?
Crisis Communications--Both Legally Required and Strategically Wise
When companies file Chapter 11, they communicate on a number of fronts and through a number of means. Pleadings are fashioned to convey a particular message to the court, creditors and anybody else who might read them. Public companies have certain mandatory disclosures in the form of 8Ks. More importantly, and more interestingly, communications strategies are undertaken by debtors to inform but reassure their customers, vendors and the public. This program will be led by experts in the field of communications in the face of a bankruptcy. Issues include securities law compliance prepetition, avoiding improper plan solicitation, the role of communications professionals in messaging even in filed documents and in case proceedings, such as the first day declaration and at the 341 meeting and, post-petition when court approval is necessary or advisable.
The Ebbs and Flows of a Chapter 11 War: the Planet Fitness Reorganization, a Case Study
This program will focus on the legal and business challenges that faced counsel to a debtor, secured lenders and franchisor in a hotly litigated, modest-sized Chapter 11 in Massachusetts involving a two-tiered ownership of six Planet Fitness franchisees. Filed in 2010 and ending with a confirmed plan in 2012, the case involved shifting allegiances, successive plans, alternative considerations of an asset sale vs a change in equity ownership depending on litigation with the franchisor, and a plethora of challenging issues, including (i) the contested settlement of litigation challenges to one secured creditor, (ii) the potential cram-down of a second secured creditor, (iii) the treatment of leases intended as security, (iv) disputed feasibility, (v) the ability to assume (and assign) the franchise agreements, (vi) whether the franchisor’s right of first refusal was enforceable, (vii) whether de-branding is a real alternative to a continuation of the franchise, (viii) whether the franchisor’s rights were waived during the case, and (ix) claims estimation. See In re Chicago Investments, LLC, 470 B.R. 32 (Bankr. D. Mass. 2012).
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