Illinois State Approved Sessions

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.

This panel will compare and contrast the SPAC craze of 2020-21 to see where we are now and what lies ahead.

This panel will discuss situations in which valuation is particularly challenging based on the type of asset, the absence of market or comparable valuation data, limitations on available information for the valuation, and other constraints. We will cover the valuation of intellectual property assets, financial assets (including royalties and other revenue streams), digital and electronic assets (including virtual currency, software code, social media assets and platforms), and privately held equity interests, among other asset categories in different sectors, such as emerging restructuring sectors like life sciences. We will also discuss valuation contexts (transaction diligence and structuring, financing and M&A transaction consummation, and distressed situations and insolvency proceedings), focusing on both the practical challenges and evidentiary support for valuation determinations in those contexts. We also will provide examples of situations in which challenging valuations have served as keystones to transactional successes.

This panel will discuss the following issues regarding crypto, distinguishing customer property from property of the estate, understanding crypto valuation issues, distribution options in crypto cases, M&A risks and pitfalls, effectively using social media to communicate with a large customer base, juggling cash and crypto management, and debtor-on-debtor violence.

This panel will compare and contrast the roles of chapter 11 trustees, chapter 7 trustees, CROs and independent directors when a case is fraudulent.