Restructuring & Insolvency
Squire Sanders restructuring and insolvency lawyers are recognized globally for their expertise and success in representing financial institutions, distressed companies, insolvency practitioners, creditors’ committees, investors, and strategic and financial buyers of troubled companies.
Squire Sanders has more than 90 restructuring and insolvency lawyers in 27 offices across 15 countries in the United States, the UK, Europe, Asia, and Central and South America. The strength and diversity of our practice across the globe mean we always act quickly and can be onsite anywhere in the world, with the capacity and experience to deal with multisite restructurings and insolvencies.
As compelling indications of our preeminent reputation, we have played key roles in some of the largest, most significant and highest profile restructurings and insolvencies in recent history including:
- Chapter 11 proceedings for:
- WorldCom (as co-counsel to the debtor)
- Enron (as co-counsel to the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors)
- Chrysler (as counsel for the Committee of Chrysler Affected Dealers)
- Phoenix Coyotes (as counsel to the debtor)
- AmFin Financial Corporation (as counsel to the debtor)
- The administrative receivership of the Arrows Formula 1 motor racing team (as lawyers to the administrative receivers)
- The administrations of:
- The Super Aguri Formula 1 motor racing team (as lawyers to the administrators)
- MG Rover Group (as lawyers to the administrators on pensions and cross-border issues)
- Global retail brands including Adams Childrenswear, Whittard of Chelsea and Cobra Beer (in various capacities including for management, financiers, administrators and buyers)
- Major UK insurance broker FirstCity Partnership (acting for the administrators and pension trustees)
- Major logistical supplier to the UK national rail network Gamble Rail Group
We are also experienced in complex cross-border insolvency matters (in particular under the EC Regulation on Insolvency Proceedings), representing parties in insolvency proceedings with US and UK ties and related proceedings in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, Brazil, Venezuela, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Most restructuring engagements are highly complex and require a significant amount of creativity, so we work with our clients and their financial professionals to develop strategies that advance their business interests and preserve and create value. We frequently coordinate our efforts with other Squire Sanders practice groups such as corporate finance, banking, capital markets, property, construction and planning, environmental, health and safety, labor and employment, pensions, intellectual property, litigation, and tax and benefits.
Our lawyers are recognized authors, serving as editors of and contributors to major textbooks in the field of restructurings, speaking at national and international conferences, serving on boards of directors of organizations such as the American Bankruptcy Institute, as well as being senior members of organizations such as R3 – the Association of Business Recovery Professionals and the Insolvency Lawyers’ Association. Four of our partners are Fellows of the American College of Bankruptcy.
We handle complex commercial financial reorganizations and insolvencies for clients in diverse industries including:
- Agribusiness
- Casinos
- Chemicals
- Construction
- Electricity generation
- Food manufacturing
- Franchised fast food operations
- Healthcare
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- High-tech manufacturing
- Infrastructure
- Insurance
- Investment and development real estate
- Professional sports clubs
- Resort hotels and Leisure
- Retail
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Our clients include:
- Bondholders
- Creditors’ committees
- Equity interests
- Financial and other institutional lenders
- Financiers
- Franchisors
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- Insolvency practitioners and other insolvency professionals
- Privately held companies
- Public companies
- Purchasers
- Secured lender committees
- Trustees of pension schemes
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We successfully employ “prepackaged” reorganizations that in the United States have resulted in confirmed plans of reorganization in just 28 to 88 days. In the retail industry, for example, we have helped chain stores, some with debt in excess of US$200 million, restructure successfully. In one such case, we were able to assist in the sale of all stores as going concerns within 60 days of the chain’s Chapter 11 filing. In the UK, we have used prepackaged reorganizations to save thousands of jobs across sectors as diverse as retail, healthcare, engineering and leisure, among others.
Our practice covers all formal categories of insolvency ranging from all forms of receivership, administration and liquidation to bankruptcy and voluntary arrangements. We also have a strong contentious team including accredited mediators with proven track records of success. We are dedicated to serving our clients’ needs across the full range of the recovery and insolvency sector and to ensuring a maximum recovery to stakeholders wherever a business faces financial difficulty.
Our experience covers a wide variety of engagements and a vast array of client industries including, among others,
automotive,
aviation,
chemicals, construction, distribution,
energy, entertainment and media,
financial institutions and services,
food and beverage,
healthcare, hospitality,
manufacturing,
professional services,
real estate,
retail and steel.
Practice Expertise
Representative Experience
- Advising financiers and subsequent administrative receivers of C6 Solutions Limited, a major UK-based chemical manufacturing and processing plant. Our advice involved complicated environmental, health and safety issues as well as a complex property portfolio to restructure and sell.
- Representing the debtor, WorldCom, a telecommunications company, in the largest Chapter 11 case in history with more than US$100 billion in debt.
- Serving as counsel in the restructuring of an integrated steel company headquartered in Ohio. We represented the company first in efforts to restructure its financial operations outside a bankruptcy proceeding, including negotiations with the holders of the company's approximately US$300 million of outstanding debt securities. We then represented the company in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding, addressing the claims of the bondholders and trade creditors as well as commercial and contract issues and obligations under the company's collective bargaining agreements.
- Representing Austin Holdings, Inc., an Ohio-based provider of global consulting, design, engineering, management and construction services, in connection with its Chapter 11 reorganization and the sale of its US operations and with the management buyout of its UK affiliate. After marketing the subsidiary, the primary interested parties were its existing management. We obtained the US bankruptcy court's approval of and executed the sale.
- Serving as counsel to American Architectural Products, a national window and door manufacturing company, in the restructuring of US$200 million in public debt securities.
- In a matter ranked by Turnaround & Workouts as one of the 10 most successful restructurings of 2005, serving as lead restructuring counsel to affiliated companies that operate U-Haul, a national truck rental and storage business, resulting in the successful restructuring of more than US$2 billion of indebtedness through confirmation of a joint plan of reorganization that left the equity interests in the debtors unimpaired. The confirmed plan involved the issuance by the debtors and an affiliated nondebtor entity of several tranches of new debt securities to creditors and the transfer of a substantial amount of real property located throughout the United States. Equity interests in the debtors were left intact without the need for existing equity holders to infuse any additional capital into the debtors. The Chapter 11 process also involved the successful representation of the debtors in bankruptcy court litigation concerning plan confirmation involving secured creditors, enforcement issues involving state and federal regulatory agencies, and claim issues involving class proofs of claim relating to alleged violations of the securities laws.
- Serving as counsel to ICF Kaiser, a Virginia-based international construction and engineering company, in the conversion and restructuring of US$450 million in public debt securities. We negotiated an agreement with a majority of the bondholders, then implemented the agreement through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding to avoid hold-out issues. The agreement was confirmed within six months of the Chapter 11 filing.
- Acting for financiers and subsequent administrators in relation to the administration and restructuring of the commercial and residential property portfolio management business of Magnus Properties (UK) Limited and related companies. The portfolio consisted of more than 1,000 residential and commercial units and involved managing debt in excess of £85 million. Our work included advice on restructuring strategy, EU regulations and Centre of Main Interest concerns, issues with regard to the multi-jurisdictional nature of the business and investigations into the affairs and dealings with the company.
- Serving as counsel to the US$30 million equipment lessor in the Chapter 11 reorganization of a national retailer, Ames Department Stores.
- Representing the US operations of Europe-based consumer product conglomerate Electrolux Home Products, Inc. in various restructuring and bankruptcy matters involving suppliers.
Case Studies
In an attempt to reverse the decline of its business, a failing Las Vegas hotel and casino claimed in court that our client had agreed to contribute US$60 million in new equity and guarantees. Facing a mix of restructuring and trial issues, the clien...
While the owner of the National Hockey League’s Phoenix Coyotes waded through an historic bankruptcy proceeding in 2009, Squire Sanders helped lead the way toward an unprecedented resolution.
The Coyotes had moved to Arizona from Winnipeg, Manitoba,...
In November 2009, Squire Sanders filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases for AmTrust Financial Corporation (now known as AmFin Financial Corporation) and five subsidiaries in Cleveland. AmTrust Financial was the holding company for AmTrust Bank, which was ...
Squire Sanders negotiated a highly complex settlement providing for one of the biggest brownfield cleanups in New York State history. Since 1999, our client, a US steelmaker, had been defending various environmental counterclaims asserted by th...
In what was described at the time as the largest not-for-profit bankruptcy case in the annals of US Chapter 11, our client needed to resolve the claims of nearly 15,000 investors and holders of US$700 million in debt securities to get its Chapter 11 ...