Archer

Business Restructuring

Our experience in restructuring is exceptional.

View Representative Cases

Sometimes the process can be as basic as asking “why.”

Archer offers operational analysis and adjustment, if, where, and as needed. Sometimes the process can be as basic as asking “why.”  We bring our unique perspective to openly and honestly review our clients’ creation and enactment methods and suggest alternative processes that can make all the difference.  By working with our clients, gaining an understanding of the industry, we have together created efficiencies that have allowed them to return to profitability, extinguish debt, and solidly move forward to growth. Where necessary, Archer can use the Chapter 11 process to give a client time to reinvent its process, thereby restoring the client’s operation while maximizing the creditors’ returns.

Meeting with business owners for restructuring

Archer’s team has an extensive track record of advising debtors and creditors in all facets of the reorganization (and even coordinated liquidation) process. Through those efforts over thirty-plus years across varied situations from logging in the Redwoods of California’s Lost Coast to gilt jewelers in Boston’s Back Bay and San Francisco’s Union Square to the New York City’s retail corridors to the movie studios of Los Angeles, we have developed a deep understanding of the operational aspects of each stage on the distress continuum.

Our lawyers represents clients through all aspects of restructuring and insolvency matters through to and including Chapter 11. We strive for bankruptcy or litigation avoidance, focusing on workouts and transactional resolutions. Through deep relationships developed over our years of practice, when working on clients’ complex restructuring and bankruptcy deals, we are able to draw on our expertise, and bring in the best lawyers from other global practices as needed to handle M&A, financing, tax and regulatory practices.

If the restructuring process becomes intransigent or the adversary implacable, we have extensive experience and great success in all facets of arbitration, motion, trial, and appellate practice.

Representative Cases

Movie Studio Restructuring
We were brought in as outside general counsel for a Los Angeles based studio facing significant challenges as its funding efforts were compromised by a series of executive level personnel issues that revealed material self-dealing and financial irregularities. We worked with the directors and new President and CEO to identify the prior malfeasance, take aggressive and transparent steps to curtail and resolve the same, including remove the offending parties, and recover assets as possible. We then set in motion a new round of governance and protocols to safeguard against such acts in the future. With that, we were thereafter able to successfully conclude a new round of 8-figure financing and move the studio toward operational profitability.
Gilt Jewelry Chain Reorganization
We were operational lead counsel for joint debtors, who operated an affiliation of gilt jewelers nationwide. We were responsible for preparation of and/or supervision of substantially all the pleadings, motions, objections, preference actions, stipulations, fee applications, compromises, and other material filed in the case as well as representation of Debtors at virtually all the hearings. The hearings were orderly and efficient as We arranged to have monthly administrative hearings in the case to ensure smooth case management without burdening the Court's calendar. We also attended and participated in the primary negotiations regarding case direction, management, and resolution. Significant accomplishments included: (1) Sale of the assets: Debtors' assets, including their operating divisions, were sold (and a substantial majority of employees kept their jobs); (2) Objections to claims: the Court sustained Debtors' objections to over $55,000,000.00 in claims, thereby increasing the dividend to the unsecured creditors to 25%; and (3) Preference actions: Debtors recovered approximately $7,000,000.00 in preferential payments, further increasing the dividend to their creditors.
Computer Company Reorganization
Debtor was a manufacturer of supercomputers. Our firm represented the Official Unsecured Creditors' Committee (the “Committee”) in its Chapter 11 case and, later, the Plan Administrator (the “Administrator”) after Bankruptcy Court approval of the Committee's Plan of Reorganization. We were responsible for administration and management of: (i) the claims objection process; (ii) the prosecution of all preference actions; and (iii) the preparation of all fee applications and final reports on behalf of the Administrator. Responsibilities included preparation of and/or supervision of substantially all the pleadings, motions, objections, preference actions, stipulations, fee applications, compromises, and other material filed by the Administrator as well as representation of the Administrator at virtually all the post-confirmation hearings. Significant accomplishments included: (1) Objections to claims: the Court sustained the Administrator's objections to over $67,000,000.00 in claims, thereby increasing the dividend to the unsecured creditors from the Committee’s initial proposal of 10.14% to approximately 20%; and (2) Preference actions: the Administrator recovered over $1,000,000.00 in preferential payments for the estate, further increasing the creditors’ dividends.
Retail Reorganization
Prior to filing its Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition, the Debtor was the second largest toy retailer in the country. We represented a landlord in a dispute over the interpretation of a statute relating to the payment and priority of a lease obligation that came due postpetition, but covered a period beginning before the bankruptcy was filed and ending after that filing. Based on our arguments, the Bankruptcy Court ordered Debtor to pay the full obligation that arose postpetition, regardless of the time period to which it related. This decision was a shift from virtually all prior decisions on this issue in this and other jurisdictions and despite challenges through the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, the Court’s decision remains the law of the land.
Hotel Reorganization
Initially brought in as local counsel, within months We became lead counsel, responsible for all facets of debt restructuring, case administration and management. Our responsibilities include preparation of and/or supervision over all pleadings and other material filed in the case, and representation of Debtor at all the hearings. The case presented several avoidance questions, focusing primarily on whether Debtor’s payments to an insider’s creditor in a sum equal to Debtor’s debt to that insider can be an ordinary course payment.
Telecom Adversary Proceeding
We served as litigation counsel in a multimillion-dollar action brought by a telecommunications company in connection with its bankruptcy case. The litigation arose out of unpaid telecom services. Representing the defendants, We settled the telecom’s claim of $4,300,000 for $100,000.
Telecom Litigation
We served as litigation counsel in a multimillion-dollar action brought by a telecommunications company arising out of its wholesale telecom business. This case presented interesting IT issues in that the telecom, in its merger with another telecom, suffered several systems compatibility problems that negatively impacted its large long-distance wholesale customers. Again, We were substituted in as counsel for defendants after entry of a judgment of $1,700,000 against them. We restructured a settlement in which our client was to pay only $300,000, spread over several years.
Hotel Adversary Proceeding
We successfully represented Debtor’s insiders as litigation counsel in a multimillion-dollar commercial fraud litigation filed against them by a secured creditor, resulting in no liability for the insiders.
$4.3 Million Claim Settled for $100,000
We served as litigation counsel for defendant in a telecommunications company action arising out of defendant’s failure to pay $4,300,000 for wholesale long distance minutes. We settled the claim for $100,000.
$1.7 Million Judgment Settled for $300,000
We served as litigation counsel for defendant in a telecommunications company action arising out of its wholesale resell business. After a judgment of $1,700,000 was entered in favor of plaintiff, We structured a settlement in which defendant paid only $300,000 over a period of several years.
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