Maryland State Approved Sessions

This panel will consider current issues of interest to judges and insolvency professionals.

Intellectual Property (IP) is often a critically important part of a company’s value paradigm. Why has IP become an even greater focus for many companies today? How is IP valued in businesses, in litigation and in bankruptcy?

Anytime there are fundamental market changes, there are winners and losers. Find out how the vast supply of U.S. oil and gas discoveries, coupled with stricter environmental regulations, are causing long-term changes. Who are the winners, and who are the losers? Find out how these shifts have impacted coal, renewables, oil and gas, power generation and refineries, and how these changes affect the value of the companies that participate in these industries, as well as the industry as a whole.

This panel will examine the “lessons learned” from recent financial services bankruptcies, settlements and restructurings (including some “near misses”), and financial distress in mortgage origination. The panel will also discuss bank holding company defaults, FDIC receivership issues, tax-sharing agreements, sale transaction issues and more.

From labor disputes in the American Airlines case to the negotiation of chapter 9 plans for Detroit, Stockton and San Bernardino, bankruptcy judges have looked to their colleagues to serve as mediators. What is the impact of this practice? Does it change the dynamics among the parties? Is there a role for private-sector mediators? Going forward, will bankruptcy cases continue to be fertile ground for alternative dispute resolution?

A review and analysis of the cost, market and income (cash flow) approaches in business valuation, including key assumptions in each of these valuation methodologies and a discussion of how academics and practitioners vary in their approaches.

Using a case study approach, this panel will examine the restructuring alternatives of a typical mid-cap company, with mock negotiations between and among a distressed company, its senior secured bank lenders, its mezzanine lenders and the equity. The presentation will focus on valuation, along with the benefits and burdens of (1) bankruptcy, (2) exercising the rights and remedies of a secure lender, (3) a consensual out-of-court restructuring and (4) the techniques and strategies for each constituency to achieve its goals.

Valuation is a critical, and often hotly disputed, issue in most bankruptcy cases. Enterprise valuations drive creditor recoveries, and solvency valuations are often outcome-determinative for the success (or failure) of fraudulent transfer and other bankruptcy-related litigation. As a result, valuation disputes often become mini-battles of the experts, the reasonableness of their assumptions and their relative credibility. Disputes usually center around those items where the expert has made subjective adjustments based on professional judgment, and even small adjustments can lead to substantial differences in value. This panel explores those issues that are most often “adjusted” based on professional judgment, including normalizing EBITDA, methodology weighting, treatment of excess cash, control premiums, minority discounts, liquidity discounts, and contingent assets and liabilities.

Distressed companies usually show declining financial performance prior to failure. This session will focus on key financial ratios such as liquidity, leverage and coverage, as well as a firm’s sources and uses of funds, cash-conversion cycle and free cash flow, both before and after restructuring.