Below is our initial take on recent bankruptcy-related developments:
Avaya Veers Towards Bankruptcy Filing | The Wall Street Journal
The technology company Avaya Holdings Corp. has decided to move towards a restructuring plan after reporting that they have reviewed restructuring proposals from multiple creditor groups.
S&K Take: Rumors of a potential Avaya bankruptcy have been out there for a while, time will tell if they ultimately prove prophetic. It seems like they will, although there are indications that an out of court deal could also be in the mix.
Revlon and Key Creditors Strike Deal, April Bankruptcy Exit | Reuters
After filing for bankruptcy in June, cosmetics company Revlon reached a restructuring agreement that would provide $44 million to Revlon’s unsecured creditors. The agreement now awaits approval by a U.S. bankruptcy judge.
S&K Take: Revlon and some key case constituents have struck a deal to potentially get Revlon out of bankruptcy by April 2023. The deal is supported by the Debtors, certain lenders dubbed the “Brandco” lenders, and the official committee of unsecured creditors, and allows for a potential toggle between the transaction proposed in the RSA or a sale, if the sale provides for better recoveries. It is an important milestone in a case that has its share of acrimony, namely between the lenders that refused to return the Citibank funds (long story short, they have all returned the funds now) and the 2016 lenders who got the short end of the stick in the 2020 liability management transaction. This one is far from over, but a step in the right direction for the debtors.
Bitcoin Miner Core Scientific Files for Bankruptcy, Expects Support from Some Debt Holders | CoinDesk
Core Scientific, one of the largest bitcoin miners, accounting for 10% of the industry’s computing power on the bitcoin network, filed for bankruptcy this week and reached a deal with some of its lenders to restructure its debt.
S&K Take: The article is a little bit off, the Core Scientific filing is not a prepack. Instead, it is backed by an RSA that contemplates a June 2023 exit. There was a little back and forth prepetition between the RSA parties and B. Riley, a large unsecured creditor that provided an alternative out of court restructuring. I expect that dynamic to continue in the bankruptcy case (it carried over a bit into the first day hearing). Another victim of the cryptopocalypse, it seems as though Core Scientific has some restructuring options.
Bankrupt Crypto Lender BlockFi Looks to Restart Certain Customer Withdrawals | CoinDesk
BlockFi is asking a U.S. court to allow customer withdrawals from the platform since BlockFi halted its operations in early November. The crypto lender filed for bankruptcy on November 28 due to exposure to FTX less than a month after locking customer withdrawals.
S&K Take: BlockFi is seeking to do what Voyager and Celsius have yet to do, which is return customer funds. The facts are clearly different, as BlockFi appears to actually have segregated customer wallets, which is good for customers clearly. There are some interesting intersections with some of the other crypto cases to keep an eye on, as there were a number of transactions across debtors.
