Over the past several years, unitranche facilities have become increasingly prevalent. This growth has been driven by the ever-growing class of private credit and direct lenders who initially developed the unitranche facility structure, along with traditional bank lenders now joining this market. The unitranche structure has several advantages, including typically quicker execution for the parties involved and in some cases a lower cost of capital to the borrower.

On June 6, 2023, the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas (the “Court”) confirmed Serta Simmons Bedding, LLC’s (“Serta”) Chapter 11 plan and held that Serta’s 2020 uptiering transaction (the “Uptiering Transaction”) did not breach Serta’s 2016 first lien credit agreement (the “Credit Agreement”).

The global COVID-19 pandemic has created uncertainty around the planned deal-making activities of many middle market private equity funds. However, this environment also creates significant opportunity to provide investment and financing to companies that find themselves in distressed circumstances.

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