What the Pros Say (Week of 4/9/17)

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  • Brand/IP Value. Hilco Streambank's David Peress is quoted herein discussing loans structured upon brands. 
  • CDS. Given the comments about CDS by Jason Mudrick (see above) and the events emanating out of iHeartCommunications Inc., credit default swaps are coming back into focus. Here (part 1) and here (part 2), Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP's Stephen Zide and colleagues provide a solid two-part summary of the CDS determination made in the iHeart matter.
  • Feasibility. In an attempt to overtake Jones Day as the winner of "Most Prolific Marketing" content supplier, Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP's Stephen Zide and David Braun provide a summary of the Paragon Offshore matter which, from our perspective, has been wildly under-covered - other than by us.

What the Pros Say (Week of 4/2/17)

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  • Jevic/Structured Dismissals. So. Many. Summaries. We understand the awkwardness of claiming to be "curated" while simply listing a dozen different firm's summaries without, at a minimum, opining as to which ones were mailed in and which ones were extensive thoughtful analyses. But, c'mon, do YOU really want to read 12 different summaries of the same case? Well, right, neither do we. Enjoy. P.S. If your firm hasn't produced one yet well...you might as well not even bother at this point.
    • Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer (Tyler Nurnberg, Michael Messersmith, Michael Bernstein) here.
    • Bracewell LLP (Kurt Mayr, Shannon Wolf) here.
    • Dechert LLP (Mysterious Legal summary bot) here.
  • Drinker Biddle (Steven Kortanek and Patrick Jackson) here.
  • Duane Morris (Rudolph Di Massa Jr., Christopher Winter) here.
  • Foley & Lardner LLP (Charles Tabb) here. 
  • Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP (Adam Rogoff, Joseph Shifer, Alana Katz) here.
  • Jones Day (Bruce Bennett, Brad Erens, Dan Moss) here.
  • O'Melveny & Meyers LLP (Evan Jones, Peter Friedman, Daniel Shamah, George Davis, John Rapisardi, Suzzanne Uhland) here. 
  • Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP (Michael Lauter) here.
  • Vinson & Elkins LLP (William Wallander, David Meyer) here.
  • Winston & Strawn LLP (Everyone) here. 

Notable

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  • Professionals Fees. The staggering amounts are getting increasing attention. This kind of attention on exorbitant costs can't be good for long-term viability of the industry.
  • Short junior associates. Casetext, a San Francisco-based AI-driven legal research product for lawyers raised $12mm in Series B funding.

What the Pros Say (2/26/17)

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  • 2016 Ranked. Jones Day LLP, the most prolific distributor of bankruptcy-related content, released this highly unscientific ranking of top-10 publicly traded bankruptcy filings. Go big or go home, Jones Day: if you're going to put out a top 10, don't pull the old "if we rank our own deal second, nobody will notice the blatant self-promotion" trick. Go #1 and own it (arguably deserved here, anyway).
  • Cross-border. Jay Goffman and Christine Okike of Skadden discuss Hanjin Shipping and Chapter 15.
  • Out of Court Restructuring Alternatives. Bankruptcy professionals are really racheting up their tech skills a notch: here, Sam Newman of Gibson Dunn, Jim Baer of CMBG Advisors Inc., Michael Ozawa of Enterprise Management Advisors LLC, Kim Withrow of Bibby Financial Services and Neil Morganbesser and Alex Kasdan of DelMorgan & Co. discuss, by webinar, options like ABCs which our friends in the VC space love to use to keep their failures secret. Shhhhhh.
  • Retail. Greenhill & Co.'s Christopher Grubb opines about the state of retail in this Bloomberg video clip. Choice quote about coming retail bankruptcies: "I think there will be 30 or 40 of meaningful scale."

What the Pros Say (2/5/17)

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Jones Day LLP is back at it with a barrage of summaries.

  • Default Interest. Monika Weiner from Jones Day LLP provides an assessmentof recent case law aligning the Ninth Circuit with the majority view of 1123(d).
  • EFIH/Makewhole. A review of the recent decision by Jones Day LLP's Bruce Bennett, Brad Erens, and Scott Greenberg. 
  • Lender Liability. A discussion from...wait for it...Jones Day LLP.
  • Marblegate. Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP arrives a little late to the party (Thoughts here by Jay Goffman, Mark McDermott, Sarah Pierce and Liz Downing) with Chadbourne as its date (more thoughts here by Marian Baldwin Fuerst and Christy Rivera). 
  • Retail. Amir Agam and Christa Hart of FTI Consulting cover the current state of retail.
  • Setoff. Charles Whitmann-Todd of, gulp, Jones Day LLP summarizes an important decision relating to the setoff of admin expenses against preferential payments.

News for the Week of 01/29/17

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  • Artificial Intelligence. Throw the phrase "AI-based" in front of anything and all of the sudden it's like gold. Including retail. We're pretty sure we'll start seeing established companies start rebranding to curtail further devolution, e.g., neiman-marcus.ai or Macy's.ai. After all, we have MacGuyver back on TV and Luke Skywalker back in the theaters...might as well get nostalgic for .com-style frenzy. 
  • Boutique IBanking. An interesting review of the stock performance of one of the original public boutique investment banking firms out there: Greenhill & Co. 
  • Coal. Longview Power CEO Jeff Keffer's assessment of the industry. TL;DR...at least under Trump there's a chance...
  • Conflicts. Believe it or not, conflicts DO exist in bankruptcy court. We're just as shocked as you, but in the Transtar bankruptcy cases, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP submitted a motion seeking to withdraw from the case after it determined that "in responding to requests by the Examiner in the course of its investigation, WF&G's own interests may conflict with the interests of the Debtors, or create an appearance of such a conflict." Pinch us. Jones Day LLP is apparently taking Willkie's place for the debtors.
  • Hedge funds. This about sums it up: "No matter what initial capital you give the hedge fund to start with, the hedge fund will become richer than you since its real talent is transferring your wealth into its coffers..."  Indeed, with 2/20, a hedge fund making 10% will make more money than its investors in 17 years.
  • Malls. We probably give the impression that we really love to shop given all of the mall talk lately. But, c'mon, you can talk to us until you're blue in the face about A Malls and C Malls but the truth is that A-LL malls are looking increasingly screwed. There are so many experiential possibilities. 
  • Neiman Marcus as a High Yield Sinkhole. The debt is plummeting: some holders are hitting eject on high yield retailers. And more concerns about liquidity in the bond market.
  • Taxis. So, the Uber effect is contagious? Seemingly so. Capital One Financial holds a distressed (and distressing) taxi medallion lending portfolio. Ugly chart here. Clearly the business traveler has embraced non-taxi options.
Natural gas price projections.

Natural gas price projections.