Search Results for: "Creditor"
The borrower is an LLC managed by a greedy principal member. The borrower slowly pays the secured creditor and unsecured creditors over years and its business becomes insolvent. The insolvent LLC makes cash distributions to its members, but not to the secured creditors. Is there a law against this sort of behavior?
Potential Outcomes of Intercreditor Deeds Secured creditors often seek agreement among themselves in order to limit intercreditor conflict and expedite fulfillment of their respective claims against a borrower in a Chapter 11 case. One might call it a “strength through peace” approach. However, in Chapter 11 cases, some courts have ignored intercreditor agreements in cramdown situations, refused to enforce certain terms as contrary to public policy, and have construed a given intercreditor agreement term as not covering the controversy at issue. We note that the likely fate of an […]
Section 1111(b) Election: A Countermeasure for Undersecured, Secured Creditors Mathew 5:29 – And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. In a previous article about cram downs, in which a debtor can take steps to confirm a Chapter 11 plan despite rejection from creditors, I referred briefly to an undersecured, secured creditor’s countermeasure: the section 1111(b)(2) election. By […]
Pacifying a Hostile Lender with a Motion to Substitute Collateral Can a Chapter 11 debtor confirm a plan that gives a hostile secured creditor a lien on an orange as a substitute, in essence, for the secured creditor’s lien on an apple that the debtor wants to keep and use?1 Yes, a motion to substitute collateral is valid if the value of the new lien meets the “indubitable equivalent” test with the value of the original lien. Substitute Collateral in Apples and Oranges Assume that the land-rich but cash-poor Chapter […]
An Unfortunate Case for Unsecured Creditors A settlement agreement in the Mega RV Corp. bankruptcy highlighted the interplay between an overzealous lender and a repentant business owner who came together to cooperate and provide a windfall recovery to unsecured creditors. Ultimately, through the machinations of the bankruptcy case, the settlement proved to be insufficient to provide the windfall that was optimistically expected only a short time earlier. Who is Mega RV? Mega RV was founded in 2000 by Mike McMahon as McMahon’s RV. They were in the business of selling […]
The Legal Requirements to Cram Down a Plan on Creditors By filing a chapter 11 petition, the debtor seizes the initiative in proposing a reorganization plan—which is to provide how soon, in what amount and in what manner creditors’ claims are paid.[i] But a debtor does not necessarily get its way. A class of creditors who are not getting paid in full may reject the plan, which will prevent confirmation on a consensual basis. Ah, but the debtor may, by fulfilling additional requirements, “cram down” the plan on those […]
1. Executive Summary. On May 8, 2019, Modagrafics, Inc., an Illinois corporation located at 5300 Newport Rd., Rolling Meadows, IL (“Modagrafics”) initiated an Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors by delivering a signed Trust Agreement and Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors (“Assignment”) to Howard B. Samuels, not individually, but solely as Assignee (“Assignee”). The Assignee, together with Modagrafic’s senior secured creditor (“Lender,” together with the Assignee, the “Sellers”), shall hold a joint public auction (“Auction”) in accordance with the Uniform Commercial Code (as adopted under Illinois law) and other applicable law (“Joint Sale”) of substantially all assets of Modagrafics (collectively the “Sale Assets”), as further described below. Modagrafics, was established in 1973 as an innovative provider of one-source visual marketing programs to its clients. Beginning with design and engineering through production, fulfillment and installation. Modagrafics has since became one of the largest manufacturers of digital printing for fleet graphics. […]
In the realm of lending, the perfected Uniform Commercial Code-1 (“UCC-1”) is the hallmark of security. If a secured asset has value, and the liens are valid, what other issues are there to consider? Well, in at least one instance, underlying intercompany notes were the issue. And because of the nature of these notes, the perfected UCC-1 lost its shine. In a bankruptcy case filed in the 5th District, the U.S. Debtor parent company had a number of lending agreements with different banks. Subsidiaries of the parent company, including foreign […]
A written tour of business bankruptcy and its alternatives. If you would like to read from the beginning, this series started here with a broad overview of business bankruptcy. Most recently, the series has focused on the automatic stay, where you can find the 30,000-foot view. Or you can find more specific treatment here, here and here. In this installment, we give a crash course from a particular perspective – the unsecured creditor. When a debtor files for bankruptcy, creditors hold different types of claims or interests against the debtor’s estate. Generally, […]
A written tour of business bankruptcy and its alternatives Our prior installment discussed some of the basic things a secured creditor needs to know about Chapter 11. The automatic stay was one of them. But, since we like to keep these things short (on the presumption that others also have short attention spans) we didn’t say all we want to say on the topic (in fact, this installment won’t satiate us either and we will continue to explain other aspects of the automatic stay in future installments). For now, we […]