 Beard Group is honored to have distressed investor Jon Weber of BlueMountain Capital Management participate in a panel on restructured boards at Distressed Investing 2019. A new kind of post-restructuring board of directors will ultimately play a critical role in maximizing shareholder value going forward. How to assemble such boards and the issues attendant to the recruitment of pertinent and qualified directors will be the subject of this timely panel. The participants, with a wealth of experience in these roles, will offer practical advice to anyone involved in distressed debt investing. Jon Weber is BlueMountain’s Head of Portfolio Company Management and serves on the investment committee. Before joining BlueMountain, Mr. Weber worked in distressed investing at Anchorage Capital Group, Goldman Sachs and Icahn Enterprises, the last of which was founded by the most famous activist on Wall Street. Mr. Weber also worked as an investment banker at JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, and as an attorney at Weil, Gotshal & Manges. BlueMountain Capital Management is among the most active investment firms in distressed investing, with positions in Toys R Us, Armstrong Energy, Monitronics, Puerto Rico and more. Follow BlueMountain on LinkedIn. Haven't registered for the conference? Register now at eventdex.com/DI2019.
 International law firm Foley & Lardner will return to sponsor Beard Group’s annual Distressed Investing Conference on Mon., Dec. 2, 2019 in New York.
With one of the country’s top restructuring practices, Foley & Lardner has worked on some of the nation's largest cases, including but not limited to such recent cases as Energy Futures, SunEdison, Bristow, Sanchez Energy, Toys R Us, Sears, Caesar's Entertainment, Senior Care Centers and Samuels Jewelers. "With 40 restructuring professionals nationwide, Foley’s practice is among the largest and most robust in the nation, representing myriad creditor and debtor constituencies. Foley's nationally recognized practice emphasizes practical solutions tailored to specific business needs,” according to the firm's bankruptcy and reorganizations page. See the latest news and insights from Foley & Lardner at foley.com/en/insights. Register for the 26th Annual Distressed Investing Conference at eventdex.com/DI2019.  See our brand new event flyer for Distressed Investing 2019. The flyer shows conference faculty Steven Seiden, Stephanie Wickouski, Bill Brandt, Gary Hindes, Jon Weber and . At the bottom are the logos of our sponsors. Feel free to share and spread the word. Thanks! Would you like to print it? Download it in PDF here: 
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Beard Group is proud to announce that Wall Street Journal reporter, Andrew Scurria, will moderate the upcoming panel on Puerto Rico’s public debt restructuring at Distressed Investing 2019.
We haven’t formally announced this panel yet, but we are honored to host Puerto Rico’s Financial Management and Oversight Board to the conference. The panelists are yet to be confirmed, but they will present the U.S. territory's plan for recovery. We couldn’t ask for a more qualified moderator. Since starting with The Wall Street Journal, Andrew has provided the most definitive reporting on Puerto Rico, from their debt crisis to Hurricane Maria and their recent political upheaval. See all his stories at wsj.com/news/author/andrew-scurria. Andrew Scurria covers financial distress and debt restructuring for The Wall Street Journal and WSJ Pro Bankruptcy, with an emphasis on energy companies, retailers and municipalities. Before working for WSJ, Andrew worked the municipal beat with one of our media partners, Debtwire. He has also worked for legal blog Law360 and Thomson Reuters. Andrew is based in New York. Follow him on Twitter at @AndrewScurria.  International financial advisory firm Conway MacKenzie will return to sponsor Beard Group’s annual Distressed Investing Conference on Mon., Dec. 2, 2019 in Midtown Manhattan.
One of the country’s top turnaround consultants, Conway MacKenzie has worked on some of the nation's largest bankruptcies, including but not limited to the City of Detroit, CJ Holdings Co. (C&J Energy), Modular Space Holdings, Inc. (Modspace) and PES Holdings, LLC (Philadelphia Energy Solutions). Some of the firm’s leading restructuring professionals include Donald MacKenzie, Kevin Barrentine, Michael Correra, Aurelio Garcia-Miro, Steven Wybo, John Young, Jr. and Jeffrey Zappone among other industry leading professionals across the firm’s 10 United States offices. In addition, Bread Group is welcoming back Norm Lieu, a highly-skilled restructuring professional of 15 years out of Conway MacKenzie’s New York office as Co-Chair, serving along-side of seasoned legal veteran Harold Kaplan, Partner of Foley & Lardner LLP.  International law firm Milbank LLP will return to sponsor Beard Group’s annual Distressed Investing Conference on Mon., Dec. 2, 2019 in New York.
With one of the world’s largest financial restructuring practices, Milbank has worked on some of the world's largest cases, including but not limited to PG&E, Windstream Holdings, Sears, ATD, Aegean Marine, Verity Health and Nine West. The firm’s leading attorneys in bankruptcy and restructuring include Dennis Dunne, Gregory Bray, Evan Fleck, Samuel Khalil, Thomas Kreller, Andrew Leblanc, Tyson Lomazow, Abhilash Raval, Mark Shinderman and more. "Consistently ranked as leaders in Chambers, Legal 500, IFLR1000, Turnarounds & Workouts, and Benchmark Litigation, our Financial Restructuring group is known globally for prominent corporate restructurings and groundbreaking chapter 11 cases," according to Milbank's website. "The key to our long-standing success: our unique ability to advise companies, creditors’ committees, financial institutions, funds and trustees in domestic and cross-border restructurings, providing perspective from all aspects of a case. We work hand-in-hand with Milbank’s other market-leading practice groups, helping our clients develop commercial solutions that create and preserve and value.” See the latest news from Milbank LLP at milbank.com/en/news. Register for the 26th Annual Distressed Investing Conference at eventdex.com/DI2019.  Emily Slater of Burford Capital will serve on a panel that will discuss how to estimate the total wildfire liability faced by bankrupt utility, Pacific Gas & Electric.
Emily Slater, a Managing Director of Burford Capital based in New York, has nearly a decade of experience structuring and underwriting legal finance deals and managing high value propositions. She has assessed thousands of cases and underwritten hundreds of millions in legal finance investments across a broad range of practice areas. Prior to joining Burford, Ms. Slater was a litigator at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, where she specialized in complex securities and other bet-the-company litigation and regulatory investigations involving billions in damages. Ms. Slater regularly represented financial institutions and public companies before the SEC and DOJ. She also represented the City of New York in the criminal investigation of the 2003 Staten Island Ferry crash and led a landmark pro bono class action litigation regarding mental health treatment in New York City jails, which prevailed in the New York State Court of Appeals. Ms. Slater graduated from New York University School of Law, where she was the Colloquium Editor of the Review of Law and Social Change. She is a founding member of the Pro Bono Advisory Council of New York Lawyers for the Public Interest and served as a trustee of Brooklyn Heights Montessori School. Burford Capital is the leading global finance and investment management firm focused on law. Its businesses include litigation finance and risk management, asset recovery and a wide range of legal finance and advisory activities. Register for the 26th Annual Distressed Investing Conference at eventdex.com/DI2019.  Widely recognized as one of the foremost firms in the corporate restructuring industry, Development Specialists, Inc. (DSI) will return to sponsor Beard Group’s Annual Distressed Investing Conference on Monday, December 2, 2019, in New York.
As one of the world’s top advisories, DSI has worked on some of the most celebrated and complex restructurings including, among others of recent vintage, PG&E, China Fishery Group, USA Gymnastics, Woodbridge, Binder & Binder, and 1 Global Capital. The firm’s leading restructuring professionals and turnaround managers include Brad Sharp, Fred Caruso, Pat O’Malley, Joe Luzinski, Geoff Berman, Tom Jeremiassen, Kyle Everett, Steve Victor and Bill Brandt. Rightly regarded as one of the pioneers in the turnaround and restructuring industry, DSI is a leading provider of management consulting and financial advisory services to business endeavors in need of operational improvements, balance sheet restructuring or turnaround management. As one of the first turnaround firms to be established, since 1977 DSI has been guided by a single objective: maximizing value for all stakeholders. With its highly skilled team of professionals, offices throughout the United States and in Europe and an unparalleled range of experience, DSI not only achieves that objective but has also built a solid reputation as a worldwide industry leader. See the latest news and publications from DSI at dsiconsulting.com/news and dsiconsulting.com/publications. Register for the 26th Annual Distressed Investing Conference at eventdex.com/DI2019.  International law firm Morrison & Foerster will return to sponsor Beard Group’s annual Distressed Investing Conference on Mon., Dec. 2, 2019 in New York.
With one of the country’s top restructuring practices, Morrison & Foerster continues to represent clients on large, intricate bankruptcies and restructurings, with a team and practice acting on matters globally. They are representing the holders of debt issued or guaranteed by the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico in complex, precedent-setting cases, and are representing the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Windstream Holdings, Inc. (a leading provider of advanced network communications and technology solutions for 1.4 million consumers), and recently concluded their representation of the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Westmoreland Coal Company (the sixth-largest coal-mining enterprise in North America), in their chapter 11 bankruptcies. The firm’s leading attorneys in insolvency include Lorenzo Marinuzzi, Gary Lee, Jennifer Marines, and Brett Miller. According to their website, “Morrison & Foerster’s Business Restructuring & Insolvency Group has a truly diverse practice and a record of accomplishment in some of the most significant bankruptcy matters of recent years. [They] are counsel to debtors, creditors’ committees, ad hoc committees, secured lenders, and other participants in the distressed markets. [They] handle financial institution restructurings, cross-border insolvencies, distressed real estate matters, insolvencies involving key intellectual property, and hedge fund failures, among other things.” See the latest news from Morrison & Foerster at mofo.com/resources/news. Each year Beard Group selects 12 restructuring lawyers below the age of 40 who are making a significant impact in the industry. The lawyers' names are published in the April edition of Turnarounds & Workouts, and each one is honored during the dinner banquet at the Distressed Investing Conference.
Below are this year's Outstanding Young Restructuring Lawyers listed with their firms and accomplishments. Jonathan Canfield Stroock & Stroock & Lavan Represented GSO Capital Partners in the $650M financing of Diebold Nixdorf; the FILO DIP lenders of Toys “R” Us; an ad hoc group of Seadrill’s lenders in connection with a $1B competing plan proposal; a key holder of credit default swaps and largest non-insider lender under Sears Holdings’ second lien credit facility; an ad hoc group of secured term loan B lenders of Empire Generating Co. LLC. Played an integral role in the financing of national homebuilder Hovnanian Enterprises. Co-lead partner on a non-public $1.5B out-of-court transaction. Trusted advisor to hedge funds, with a deep practice that covers the gamut of chapter 11 matters, turnarounds, and in-court and out-of-court restructurings. Lauren C. Doyle Milbank Co-led team that represented the Unsecured Creditors’ Committee of M&G USA in the nearly $2B debt restructuring; a group of lenders in connection with Preferred Sands’ out-of-court restructuring, which required support of 100% of holders of more than $1.5B debt and was completed in just under eight weeks; the agent and steering committee of senior secured lenders in the successful amendment of Seadrill Partners Ltd.’s term loan debt, an integral component of its overall restructuring; Mercuria Energy Group in its strategic investment in Aegean Marine Petroleum Network, negotiating a $532M DIP financing and a deal to serve as stalking horse bidder to acquire majority of Aegean Marine’s assets; the ad hoc committee of senior creditors of Ultra Petroleum; and a Brazilian sugar and ethanol producer in connection with a restructuring of its debt obligations. Chris Gartman Hughes Hubbard & Reed Lead counsel in the $225M Chapter 11 restructuring of CST Industries, negotiating a deal with its largest creditor and mezzanine lender, Oaktree Capital Management, which interfered with an attempted sale of the company. Post-effective date counsel to Cenveo Worldwide Limited, f/k/a Cenveo Inc., leading the team administering roughly $2B in claims. Represented Patriot National in its restructuring, which shed over $240M of liabilities through a debt-for-equity swap, handed control of the company to its pre-petition and DIP lenders, and successfully confirmed a plan of reorganization within three months. David Nigel Griffiths Weil, Gotshal & Manges Advised Westinghouse Electric on its chapter 11 restructuring, involving roughly $10B of debt and an $800M DIP loan, and resulting to the $4.6B sale of the business to Brookfield Business Partners. Represents Goldman Sachs in $325M exit financing for Nine West Holdings; KKR Credit and other lenders of Things Remembered; H/2 Capital Partners in cross-border restructuring of Four Seasons Healthcare; Carlyle Group in restructuring the Moroccan refinery SAMIR; and Trive Capital in the chapter 11 cases and acquisition of defense contractor Wellman Dynamics. Advises A&E Networks on the high-profile bankruptcies of The Weinstein Company and Open Road Films. George R. Howard Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom Played lead role representing Bank of America (and working with Citibank and Wells Fargo as joint lead arrangers) in providing Sears Holding’s $1.83B senior DIP financing, and negotiating inter-creditor terms with a junior DIP financing facility and acquisition financing for ESL Investments’ going-concern acquisition of Sears, which resulted in payment in full of senior DIP financing facility. Advised Quantum Pacific (Gibraltar) Ltd., a 70% shareholder of Pacific Drilling S.A., ultimately reaching a consensual resolution that gave QP opportunity to invest $40M in new equity in the reorganized business, while the debtor was able to take advantage of strong credit markets in the fall of 2018 to raise $1.5 billion of new debt and equity capital to finance its exit from bankruptcy. Brad Kahn Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld Key member of team representing FirstEnergy Solutions Corp. in $5B restructuring. Represented the governance committee of GenOn Mid-Atlantic (GenMA) in connection with investigating and/or litigating potential claims against, and successfully negotiating a settlement with, GenOn Energy, its debtor affiliates and non-debtor parent company NRG Energy. Continues to represent GT Advanced Technologies and affiliates in the wind-down of its Chapter 11 cases. Jessica Liou Weil, Gotshal & Manges Core member of team spearheading PG&E Corp.’s restructuring. Advising Sears Holdings in its landmark chapter 11 and $5.2B sale of 425 stores to ESL, preserving roughly 45,000 jobs. Represented Chapter 11 debtors Catalina Marketing, which cut roughly $2B of debt by more than 85%; Claire’s Stores, which eliminated about $1.9B of debt and obtained $575M in new capital; Westinghouse Electric, which restructured about $10B of debt and sold the business for $4.6B to Brookfield Business Partners; and Fieldwood Energy on an innovative prepackaged restructuring that acquired strategic assets, equitized over $1.6B of debt, and raised $525M of capital. Jennifer Marines Morrison & Foerster Represents various bondholders, creditors, and parties-in-interest in the ongoing chapter 11 bankruptcy cases of California’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, which is facing more than $30B in liabilities related to the 2017 and 2018 California wildfires, along with $24B in outstanding funded debt; various creditors of Sears Holdings Corporation, including ICON, UPS, and Wolverine, among the largest unsecured trade creditors; and the Unsecured Creditors’ Committee of Westmoreland Coal Company, the sixth largest coal-mining enterprise in North America. Oscar Pinkas Dentons Advised Stellex Capital Management on its acquisition of publicly traded Fenix Parts, allowing Fenix to avoid bankruptcy; Wilmington Savings Fund Society, FSB as indenture trustee and collateral agent in the issuance of $650M secured notes on the Chapter 11 plan effective date in Global A&T Electronics’ bankruptcy, and as indenture trustee in the Toys “R” Us $450M secured “European” DIP financing; and Chippewa Capital Partners as plan sponsor in the $5B+ restructuring of assets and liabilities of Mesabi Metallics. Assisted Epic Companies in its out-of-court restructuring and acquisition of Ranger Offshore’s assets, a fleet of barges and boats in the US and Africa. Brian Schartz Kirkland & Ellis Guided Parker Drilling in its prearranged Chapter 11 case, which reduced fundeddebt obligations by roughly $375M and provided $95M in fully committed new equity capital; Técnicas Marítimas Avanzadas, S.A. de C.V., a maritime logistics services company based in Monterrey, Mexico, in its successful out-of-court restructuring; Seadrill Limited in the multi-jurisdictional restructuring of roughly $20B of contract and debt obligations; and Energy Future Holdings Corp., the seventh largest Chapter 11 case in history, with more than $49B in liabilities and $36B in assets. Eli Vonnegut Davis Polk & Wardwell Represents Pernix Therapeutics in its Chapter 11 restructuring; Uniti Group in the restructuring of Windstream; an ad hoc group of Ultra Petroleum noteholders in connection with a private notes exchange; an ad hoc committee of noteholders in GenOn‘s emergence from bankruptcy; and the administrative agent in connection with DIP financing facilities for iHeartMedia (Citibank N.A.) and Toys “R” Us (JPMorgan Chase). Advises numerous financial institutions on living wills and hedge funds on investments in complex distressed businesses. Joe Zujkowski O’Melveny & Myers Recently promoted to partner at O’Melveny. Key member of team that advises the Government of Puerto Rico on financial restructuring that involves over US$70B of funded debt and approximately US$50B of pension obligations. Represented an ad hoc group of term loan lenders in connection with Remington Outdoor’s chapter 11 cases. Represented an ad hoc group of LINN Energy’s second lien bondholders on a bespoke settlement agreement avoiding costly litigation with LINN, on a US$500m equity raise incorporated into LINN’s plan of adjustment, in defeating a motion filed by LINN’s first lien creditors seeking payment of default interest, and in acquisition of substantial portion of the equity in reorganized LINN. Engaged by multiple confidential hedge fund clients to evaluate potential investments in distressed credits. Don't miss the conference and banquet honoring each one of these professionals who will shape the future of restructuring. Register now for Distressed Investing 2019. |
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