Panelists for the 2005 Annual Spring Meeting Announced
Bringing a Prearranged Plan Together—Can We Agree to Agree?
On April 30, 2005, at the 2005 Annual Spring Meeting, the Financial Advisors and Young and New Members Committees will present four experts from bankruptcy and corporate restructuring firms located across the country to discuss prearranged plans of reorganization. In discussing prearranged plans, the panelists will address the varying constituencies and dynamics involved in negotiating a prearranged plan, the process of negotiating and implementing a prearranged plan, the roles of various players and advisors in the process, key factors for success, and recent case examples.
The Panelists and Their Thoughts on Prearranged Plans
Adam Paul
Adam is a partner in the Chicago office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. He practices primarily in the firm’s Restructuring, Insolvency, Workout & Bankruptcy department. He has significant experience in bankruptcies involving asbestos and other mass torts, including serving as debtor’s counsel in two of the largest asbestos bankruptcy cases in the nation. In addition to his mass tort experience, Adam has represented clients at the trial and appellate levels in complex restructurings and commercial disputes in both state and federal courts throughout the country. Finally, Adam has counseled parties in out-of-court workouts and debt restructuring.
Because he has extensive experience serving as debtor’s counsel, Adam will primarily discuss prearranged plans from the debtor’s perspective. In so doing, he will discuss benefits to the debtor in filing a prearranged plan of reorganization, including less time in bankruptcy, cost savings and increased certainty in plan approval and the voting process. Much like traditional bankruptcies, however, prearranged plans also have significant pitfalls, which he will discuss, including risk that the court will not approve the prearranged plan package and the debtor’s inability to keep its intention to file bankruptcy confidential.
Finally, on the topic of prearranged plans of reorganization, Adam had this to say: “The prearranged plan process can be extremely beneficial to all constituencies involved because the bankruptcy process can happen on a more expedited basis with substantial savings to not only the debtor, but other parties in interest, resulting in greater recovery to creditors.”
Ron Kubick
Mr. Kubick is a member of the GE Commercial Finance National Restructuring Group, an industry leader in the structuring and delivery of bankruptcy-related financing products and services. As a member of that group, he helps aid distressed companies through today’s restructuring and bankruptcy processes. Mr. Kubick has extensive experience structuring financing for companies both in and out of bankruptcy.
As a result of his extensive experience in bankruptcy financing, Mr. Kubick will primarily discuss DIP and post-confirmation lending in the context of prearranged plans of reorganization. From the perspective of a lender, prearranged plans are especially beneficial because prearranged plans offer certainty to all parties. For the most part, under a prearranged plan, all parties, including bank groups, secured and unsecured creditors and other parties in interest, have consented to their treatment, the DIP facility and the DIP lender’s treatment before the petition is filed. Mr. Kubick will also discuss the most difficult components of the prearranged plan process, including striking a balance between the DIP facility and the debtor’s post-confirmation financing.
From the lender’s perspective, Mr. Kubick believes that, “because prearranged plans generally involve debtors with good business models, but bad balance sheets, there are very few pitfalls for a DIP lender in the context of prearranged plans, that is, unless the debtor’s operations encounter post-petition problems.”
Peter S. Kaufman
Peter Kaufman has been managing director of Gordian Group LLC since 1990 and is head of Gordian’s Restructuring and Distressed M&A practice. Previously he was at First Boston Corp where he was a founding member of its Distressed Securities Group. He has over 25 years of experience in the business of solving complex financial challenges as an investment banker and attorney.
Mr. Kaufman is the founding co-chairman of ABI’s Investment Banking Committee. He is also a contributing editor, on ethics, for the ABI Journal. He has consistently been named one of the 10 leading national investment bankers in financial restructurings by The Deal.
Mr. Kaufman received a Bachelor of Arts degree (with Honors) in history and art history from Yale College and received a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was in the top 25 percent of his class.
Mr. Kaufman is co-authoring a major treatise, Distressed Investment Banking: To the Abyss and Back, to be published in early 2005 by Beard Books LLC. He is also co-author of “The Role of the Investment Banker,” Bankruptcy Business Acquisitions, LexMed Publishing, 1998, which details various strategies and tactics used in distressed situations and “Trading in the Distressed Market,” Investing in Bankruptcies and Turnarounds, Harper Collins Publishers 1991.
Steven L. Victor
Mr. Victor has been a member of the professional staff of Development Specialists Inc. (“DSI”) since 1988. While with DSI, he has had the opportunity to administer and oversee the operations of a number of manufacturing/processing companies in a variety of circumstances including chapter 7 bankruptcy, chapter 11 bankruptcy, workout situations, general consulting engagements, and through a variety of out-of-court liquidation scenarios.
As a result of the instability of the technology sector, Mr. Victor has spent a significant amount of time involved with workout situations and bankruptcies in the telecommunications and dot-com arenas. His engagements have spanned these industries, handling such areas as broadband capacity, co-location facilities, DSL providers, equipment manufacturers, retail services and telecom accounts receivable factoring.
Since joining Development Specialists, Mr. Victor has assumed the operating responsibility and/or CFO functions for a publicly-traded recreational vehicle manufacturer, a publicly-traded specialty petroleum product refinery, and at least three mortgage servicing companies. During his tenure at DSI, he has provided interim management services to one of the largest 7-11 franchisees in the country and to the market’s largest manufacturer and distributor of nail polishes and artificial fingernails. Additionally, Mr. Victor accepted a post-bankruptcy/receivership role as CFO for an international multi-debtor food diverter that was involved in Southern Florida’s largest Ponzi fraud scheme. His consulting experience includes numerous telecommunications-related entities, a myriad of dot-coms, several printing companies, a residential home manufacturer, a bank and a luxury resort, as well as various general contractors and retailers.
Mr. Victor’s strengths include operations, management, financial analysis, budgeting, business valuations, marketing services and resource management. His areas of expertise include telecommunications, manufacturing, real estate and financial services.