Law360 Names Akin Gump’s Financial Restructuring Practice a Practice Group of the Year
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(New York) – Akin Gump is pleased to announce that its financial restructuring practice has been selected by Law360 as a winner of its 2018 Practice Group of the Year awards in the category of bankruptcy. Law360 describes the winners as the firms “behind the litigation wins and major deals that resonated throughout the legal industry in the past year.” In recognizing Akin Gump, Law360 cited the work of the firm’s lawyers in guiding stakeholders to resolutions on contentious corporate restructuring plans for Avaya Inc. and Seadrill Ltd., “while also negotiating higher recoveries for unsecured creditors in other large Chapter 11 cases.”
Akin Gump is noted for having played “an instrumental role in developing a plan to reorganize telecom giant Avaya and getting other parties on board,” ultimately persuading a majority of senior lenders to support their legal strategy and then working to gain consensus from other creditor groups.
Financial restructuring partner Ira Dizengoff, who was named by Law360 in November as one of its 2018 MVPs (click here to read more), said, “We convinced people that we have the right path to solve the issues confronting the company. It has cleaned up its balance sheet. It’s poised for success.”
Speaking of the firm’s representation of an investor group holding about one-quarter of Seadrill’s unsecured debt, Mr. Dizengoff observed, “We got to a resolution that works and then we wound up folding in other unsecured creditors.”
Several other matters highlighted by Law360 included:
- Akin Gump’s ongoing work on behalf of the committee of unsecured creditors of Nine West Holdings Inc. Financial restructuring partner Michael Stamer said, “We anticipate the work that we’ve done to date and continue to do will be very beneficial to the constituency that we in our committee represent.”
- Helping to negotiate a plan to restructure iHeartMedia’s $16 billion worth of funded debt, which was confirmed subsequent to the publication of the article. As Mr. Dizengoff noted, “Through sheer diligence, strength of will, and telling the company what was in their best interests,” the committee was able to negotiate amendments to a prepackaged plan of reorganization that increased recoveries for unsecured creditors from roughly 2 percent to a minimum of 45 percent and potentially up to 100 percent.
- Representing the interests of unsecured creditors in the Sears Holding Corp. bankruptcy.
- Representing the bankrupt power generation subsidiaries of FirstEnergy Corp. as they seek to restructure $5 billion worth of debt and become part of a fully regulated business.
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP is a leading international law firm with more than 900 lawyers in offices throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
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