There were nearly a million bankruptcy cases filed by individuals and businesses in 2014. It is safe to say that only the tiniest fraction of such debtors have any familiarity with the Supreme Court’s decision in Stern v.
As a company turns in the widening gyre of financial distress, its directors and officers are often confronted with situations that require them to make difficult decisions. Should things fall apart, those decisions may give rise to claims that directors or officers breached their fiduciary duties to the company. A
Energy Future Holdings (EFH), f/k/a TXU Corp., an energy company centered in Texas, was taken private in 2007 in the largest leveraged buyout transaction that has ever taken place. The deal was largely predicated on an anticipated rise in natural gas prices; when prices instead plummeted the company, which had borrowed nearly $40 billion, was left with a massively unbalanced capital structure. The chapter 11 cases of EFH and its subsid
One month ago, Judge Christopher Klein ruled in the city of Stockton, CA bankruptcy case that public employee pension obligations can be impaired in municipal bankruptcy cases under Chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy Code. Last week, however, Judge Klein approved the plan of adjustment for Stockton that left public pension obligations intact over the vociferous objection of Franklin Investments, a major city bondholder whose claim was substantially reduced. The confirmation of the Stockton plan underscores that even as there now appears to be a sound legal foundatio
The perception that public employee pension obligations cannot be impaired in bankruptcy suffered a damaging blow several months ago in the City of Detroit bankruptcy case, and has now been fatally wounded by
General Motors LLC (“New GM”) came into being in the summer of 2009, when it acquired substantially all of the assets of General Motors Corporation (“Old GM”) in a sale undertaken pursuant to section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code. The July 2009 Sale Order approved by U.S.
Bankruptcy courts typically rely on three valuation methods to determine a debtor’s enterprise value: comparable company analysis, precedent transaction analysis, and discounted cash flow analysis.
Three years ago, in Stern v.
Discounted cash flow analysis is a mainstay among the valuation methodologies used by restructuring professionals and bankruptcy courts to determine the enterprise value of a distressed business. Despite its prevalence, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York recently concluded the DCF method was inappropriate for the valuation of “dry bulk” shipping companies.