Secured Lenders, Agents, DIP Lenders, and Lender Groups

Seward & Kissel has represented secured lenders, agents, debtor-in-possession lenders and lender groups in out-of-court and in-court restructurings, and has provided bankruptcy-related structuring advice regarding structured finance and asset securitization transactions. We have advised our lender clients about refinancings and loan amendments, intercreditor issues, use of cash collateral, debtor-in-possession financing, sale of collateral, and chapter 11 plan negotiations and treatment, among other things.

• J. Crew Group Inc.  S&K represents the administrative agent on the prepetition term loan facility and the DIP financing. Before the chapter 11 filing, S&K was involved in a dispute between some lenders and the borrower and other lenders regarding various amendments to the term loan facility that were initiated as part of the initial efforts to restructure the borrower’s corporate debt.
• Pier 1 Imports.  S&K represents the administrative agent on the term loan credit facility in connection with Pier 1’s chapter 11 cases. S&K has advised its client in connection with the negotiation and documentation of postpetition financing and use of cash collateral, as well as the company’s sale process and chapter 11 plan of liquidation.
• Rubie’s.  S&K represents the administrative agent for a prepetition credit agreement in connection with the chapter 11 cases of the borrower. S&K is advising the agent regarding use of cash collateral and postpetition financing, among other things.
• Westmoreland Coal Company.  S&K represented the prepetition administrative and collateral agent for a senior secured term loan facility in the chapter 11 cases of the borrower and guarantors. S&K worked with counsel to the ad hoc group of lenders to protect the interests of the lenders in connection with the bankruptcy cases and to facilitate the sale of the certain of the debtors’ interest in a coal mine to the prepetition lenders by way of a credit bid after the initial sale transaction failed to close.
• Toisa Limited.  S&K represented two secured lenders with a total of four loan facilities in the chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings of Toisa Limited and various subsidiaries. S&K advised its clients regarding the contentious use of the lenders’ cash collateral, forced a change in the debtors’ management, and reviewed various chapter 11 exit strategies and the ultimate marketing and sale of the vessels securing the loan facilities.
• Murray Metallurgical Coal Holdings LLC.  S&K represents the administrative agent for a prepetition term loan facility as well as the administrative agent and collateral agent for junior and senior debtor-in-possession financing facilities in connection with the chapter 11 cases of the borrower and guarantors.
• Mission Coal Company.  S&K represented the administrative agent for a superpriority priming debtor-in-possession term loan credit facility entered into in connection with the chapter 11 cases of a coal mining company and its affiliates.
• Harvey Gulf.  S&K represented a holder of secured debt in its objection to the confirmation of the borrower’s plan of reorganization. S&K worked closely with co-counsel to protect the rights of the client as the largest secured lender and soon-to-be largest shareholder of the reorganized entity.
• Energy Future Holdings Corp.  S&K represented the administrative agent and collateral agent for senior secured obligations in the chapter 11 cases of the borrower and guarantors. S&K advised the agent regarding the use of cash collateral, inter-secured creditor litigations, claims, and plan treatment.
• Sillerman.  S&K represented a secured lender in the chapter 11 case of Robert Sillerman, including with respect to its mortgages on a NYC mansion and other properties and the eventual appointment of a chapter 11 trustee.
• International Shipholding Corporation.  S&K represented a prepetition secured lender that also provided necessary post-petition debtor-in-possession financing to the borrower under the prepetition facility. S&K advised its client in connection with the use of cash collateral, the negotiation and documentation of the DIP financing, the sale of the vessels securing the prepetition facility and the confirmation of a plan of reorganization.
• root9B Holdings.  S&K advised a secured lender in the restructuring of root9B Holdings, a provider of cybersecurity products, which ultimately resulted in a Uniform Commercial Code sale process and an investment from an emerging technologies fund.
• Arch Coal, Inc.  S&K represented the administrative agent and collateral agent for secured debt in the chapter 11 case of the borrower. S&K advised the agent regarding the use of cash collateral, claims and plan treatment.
• Técnicas Maritimas Avanzadas.  S&K represented a last-out secured lender in consensual out-of-court restructuring of a maritime logistics services company based in Mexico. As part of the engagement, S&K considered significant cross-border enforcement issues related to the collateral.