Representative Bankruptcy Deals at Olshan Law

Business Restructuring & Bankruptcy

Our firm's Business Restructuring & Bankruptcy Group represents troubled companies, committees, secured creditors, lenders, vendors, acquirers and investors, both in and out of bankruptcy court. Our goal is always to design and implement the strategy best suited to our clients' business plans. Our representative matters include:

Current Representations

We currently represent a group of about 50 present and former brokers across the country who face the challenge of dealing with the Grubb & Ellis Chapter 11. What makes it challenging is the very quick path of the bankruptcy as Grubb & Ellis is the subject of a 363 sale process. While there is an official creditors committee appointed, there was no voice for the very critical issues faced by the most valuable part of the business, the brokers who have so much at stake. There is tremendous uncertainty over the future, the relationships and the commissions owed and those to be generated.

How their commissions and relationships are balanced and treated through the courts is not subject to any bright line test. The process is challenging and the Olshan team lead by Michael S. Fox and Eric L. Goldberg are deeply involved in this endeavor. The issues involve many unchartered areas. We are assisting our client to balance these in an effective way that will permit a smooth transition to a buyer and avoid any disruption to the flow of commissions to brokers and permit the restructured company to avoid disruption.

Debtor Representations

Jennifer Convertibles, Inc.
Jennifer operated 175 sofabed and leather specialty retail stores throughout the country, and operated 6 big-box, full-line furniture stores under the Ashley Furniture HomeStore brand. Through Olshan's guidance, Jennifer Convertibles, Inc. successfully emerged from Chapter 11 protection. Despite challenges throughout the 7-month bankruptcy, Olshan worked closely with the company's key foreign and domestic suppliers, credit card processor and landlords and achieved confirmation of a plan of reorganization.

Trans-Lux Corporation
Olshan represented Trans-Lux, a publicly-held company that is a leading designer and manufacturer of digital signage display solutions. Our efforts helped the company reinvent itself. We accomplished a comprehensive out of court restructure and recapitalization of the company. The company was upside down and had a distressed balance sheet. Trans-Lux avoided bankruptcy and default on its outstanding debt while recapitalizing its balance sheet.

Basketball City
Olshan represented this premier New York sports facility next to Chelsea Piers, home to numerous recreational leagues, high schools and instructional camps, in its Chapter 11 proceeding. Olshan staved off eviction and restructured its debt which paved the way for Basketball City to develop its new facility on Pier 36 at South Street.

Creditors' Committee Representations

Signature Apparel Group LLC
Olshan represented the Creditors' Committee in the Chapter 11 case of Signature Apparel, a privately owned, multi-faceted apparel company that designed, developed, manufactured, distributed and sold branded apparel worldwide. Olshan currently represents the Responsible Person appointed under Signature's Chapter 11 plan of liquidation. In connection with this representation, we investigated and commenced litigation regarding officer and director misconduct, breach of fiduciary duties and related claims. The proceeds from this litigation were then used to fund a meaningful distribution to the creditors.

Regional Diagnostics, LLC
Regional Diagnostic, with 24 imaging centers, was one of the largest and most prestigious regional outpatient diagnostic imaging center chains in the United States. On behalf of the Creditors' Committee and then the Creditors' Trustee, we investigated and commenced litigation regarding officer and director misconduct, breach of fiduciary duties and related claims resulting from a failed leveraged buyout.

Creditor Representations

4Kids Entertainment, Inc.
Olshan currently represents Nihon Ad Systems, Inc. and TV Tokyo Corp., licensors of the Yu-Gi-Oh! animated brand and television series, and certain other intellectual property licensors in connection with their license agreements with 4Kids Entertainment, Inc. and their related rights and interests in the 4Kids Chapter 11 cases.

Tribune Company
Olshan acted as bankruptcy co-counsel to a group of "Step One" LBO senior lenders holding approximately $1 billion in pre-petition bond debt seeking to protect and enhance their recoveries from Tribune's bankruptcy estates. As bankruptcy co-counsel, Olshan was involved in the negotiation, mediation and filing of a competing Chapter 11 plan of reorganization on behalf of our clients.

Global Capacity Holdco, LLC
Global Capacity Holdco, LLC and its affiliated debtors brought to market products that enabled clients to improve the efficiency of telecommunications access networks. Olshan represented a group holding the vast majority of the company's debentures, totaling approximately $38 million. With Olshan's guidance, this group also served as the company's post-petition DIP lenders and stalking horse bidder for substantially all of the company's assets.

New York City and Suffolk Off-Track Betting Corporation
Olshan represents the owner and operator of Monticello Raceway, a harness racing track located in upstate New York, seeking recovery from NYC and Suffolk OTB (then in Chapter 9) for statutory commissions owing to the racetrack under the New York Racing, Pari-Mutuel Wagering and Breeding Law.

Fairpoint Communications, Inc.
In connection with the plan confirmation process for Fairpoint Communications, Olshan served as bankruptcy counsel to thirteen Vermont municipalities and utility providers holding both pre-petition and post-petition claims against the debtors' estates. Olshan assisted in the successful resolution of our clients' claims.

Delta Airlines
We represented Clayton County, Georgia, location of the Atlanta Airport, Delta's primary hub. The County was one of the largest tax claimants in the Delta case.

Sendtec Inc.
We represented a senior secured bondholders committee in connection with its efforts to maximize recoveries in connection with a section 363 asset sale of Sendtec Inc., a large technology service provider.

Saint Vincent's Medical Center
We represented Commerce Bank, N.A. in a $35 million senior secured loan facility secured by the Hospital's federal and state entitlement pools.

Champion Motor Group LLC
Olshan represented strategic investors that acquired the senior loan position held by M&T Bank secured by the assets of Champion Motor Group LLC, a debtor-in-possession. We acquired the assets of Champion for our client using the loan as a credit bid. Our group was the successful bidder in a competitive and challenging Section 363 asset sale. Champion was the largest Bentley dealership in the United States. Our clients remain as the owners and operators and have since expanded the franchise to include Rolls Royce.

Mooney Aircraft Co.
Olshan represented various senior secured creditors of Mooney Aircraft Co., a renowned single aircraft manufacturer, in connection with a friendly foreclosure.

Out-of-Court Workouts and Restructurings
Throughout the recent financial crisis and its aftermath, Olshan has regularly counseled companies and their management in connection with the development and execution of creative and inventive strategies aimed at effectuating out-of-court restructurings. Most recently, Olshan represented an online video company in connection with its successful out-of-court restructuring pursuant to which the largest holder of the company's preferred stock agreed to covert its interests to common stock of the company in return for a guaranteed distribution upon, among other things, a sale of the company. Olshan represented a public gaming company in connection with its out of court restructuring of approximately $65 million of bond debt. Olshan is also currently representing the premier supplier of digital display solutions for the financial, sports and entertainment, gaming, and leasing markets in connection with its attempt to avoid a bankruptcy filing and effectuate a consensual out-of-court restructuring of its bank, bond and trade debt, and sale of its non-core assets.

Real Estate Strategies
Olshan represented the Kaufman Organization in connection with its acquisition of 100-104 Fifth Avenue from the bankruptcy estate of Rock US Holdings Inc.

Olshan has represented well-known New York City developers in the acquisition of many highly desirable properties, including 310 Madison Avenue, 342 Madison, 400 Madison and 40 West 55th Street using a combination of bankruptcy, foreclosure and other creditors rights laws.

In the Chapter 11 cases of Madison Avenue Land Limited Partnership and Madison Plaza Associates, after we recommended that our client purchase a mortgage at a substantial discount, we compelled an auction sale of one of Midtown's last remaining development sites (5th Avenue and 42nd Street). The procedures we established allowed our client to purchase the property primarily for a credit bid of its mortgage while precluding several other major developers and REIT's from entering the bidding process.