We have one of the leading restructuring practices in the nation, principally representing creditors in national and multinational bankruptcy cases and out-of-court restructurings. Attorneys in our restructuring and finance group regularly handle complicated acquisitions or divestitures of businesses in financial distress or bankruptcy, highly-leveraged transactions and other major transactions involving significant debtor/creditor issues.

We recently advised the U.S. Treasury in its $200 billion rescue investment in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Other recent restructuring engagements include: the Chapter 11 cases and SIPA proceedings of Lehman Brothers (representing JPMorgan Chase); Delphi (representing Capital Research & Management, the largest bondholder and chair of the official creditors committee); Refco (representing Man Financial in acquiring Refco’s futures business in a contested auction); Atrium (representing an ad hoc committee of bondholders); Linens 'N Things (representing a joint venture acquiring assets); Calpine; Northwest Airlines; Collins & Aikman; SunCom; Worldcom; Enron; Kmart (representing Edward S. Lampert's investment vehicle in acquiring control of Kmart); Cable & Wireless (representing the UK's Cable and Wireless in the successful separation and sale of its financially distressed U.S. subsidiaries through a bankruptcy sale culminating in a consensual plan); Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts; and several structured investment vehicles including, KKR Financial Atlantic and Pacific, Axon Funding, Victoria Finance and Ottimo.

Our group's specialized litigators handle high-profile litigation matters involving restructuring and finance issues, such as Vlasic Foods v. Campbell Soup (successfully defending Campbell Soup and affiliates against a fraudulent conveyance claim arising from the spin-off of its Vlasic Foods specialty food business, which subsequently filed Chapter 11), and Footstar v. Kmart (representing Kmart in its dispute with Footstar, over Footstar’s attempt to compel assumption of its license to operate the shoe departments in all Kmart stores).

Our restructuring and finance group is involved in some of the most significant sponsor and strategic acquisitions and investments, often working closely with the our corporate attorneys. Recent transactions include representing: Bank of America in its acquisition of Merrill Lynch; Morgan Stanley in connection with the recent investment by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group; Wells Fargo in connection with its acquisition of Wachovia; the spin-offs by IAC/InterActiveCorp of Ticketmaster, Interval and HSN; the merger of the NYSE with Euronext; the acquisition by Apax, Apollo, Madison Dearborn and Permira of Intelsat (the world’s largest fixed satellite company); the subsequent acquisition of PanAmSat (the world’s second largest fixed satellite company) by Intelsat and the sale of Intelsat to BC Partners; the acquisition of Euronext by NYSE; the LBO of Tribune by Sam Zell and Tribune ESOP; the acquisition of Archstone by Tishman Speyer and Lehman Brothers; the acquisition of Albertsons by SUPERVALU; the acquisition of Pan Pacific Retail Properties by Kimco; the merger of Sears with Kmart; Thermo Electron’s acquisition of Fisher Scientific; the spin-off by IAC/InterActiveCorp of Expedia; the combination of Lucent and Alcatel; the acquisition by Blackstone of Healthmarkets; the acquisition by Vulcan Materials of Florida Rock; the acquisition by Darden of RARE; the IPO of Lazard; and the acquisitions by Apollo of Harrah’s, Noranda, Metals USA, Covalence Specialty Materials, Berry Plastics, Momentive and the logistics business of TNT.

Our group also works on high-profile sell-side financing matters, including the sales of HD Supply, Penn National Gaming, Ceridian, Dollar General, Alltel, Sports Authority, Tommy Hilfiger and Outback Steakhouse.

Our restructuring and finance group works closely with our corporate group on acquisition financing for transactions, including bank facilities and capital markets transactions. Our group also represents leading private equity sponsors on financing matters, including, among others, Apollo, Goldman Sachs, Fox Paine, Morgan Stanley, Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, Warburg Pincus and Silver Lake.