Linklaters

The team comprises insolvency specialists throughout Europe, the Americas and Asia, who work closely with the firm’s top tier finance and corporate practices. They also have experience of other relevant areas of law, such as tax, employment, real estate, intellectual property and litigation & arbitration.

Creditors, including banks and other financial investors and steering committees, insolvency practitioners, corporate debtors and their directors/officers rely on the team’s leading restructuring and insolvency expertise. This encompasses debt restructuring and rescheduling, equity capital raising and restructuring, distressed M&A activity, investigation, asset tracing and insolvency litigation, formal insolvency procedures and contingency planning, distressed creditor and equity investment and trading and debtor advisory work.

Recent restructuring and insolvency experience includes:

• Jarvis Hotels - advised the Royal Bank of Scotland plc as lender and Grant Thornton as administrator in connection with the restructuring of Jarvis Hotels
• Seat Pagine Gialle  - advising the Italian telephone directories and street maps publisher in connection with its debt restructuring
• Home Retail Group  - advised Home Retail Group on its acquisition of three key Habitat stores in London, the Habitat retail website, related stock and the Habitat intellectual property in the UK and Ireland
• Southern Cross - advising the Landlords' Committee in respect of the UK care home provider, Southern Cross, helping to coordinate the transfer of care homes to the landlords in an orderly fashion
• Eircom - advising the company in connection with its debt restructuring
• Sharpes Bedrooms Limited - advised Sun Capital on the £7.5m acquisition of the Sharps Bedrooms business and assets structured as a pre-pack acquisition, with the seller, Homeform Group Limited, being placed into administration immediately prior to the acquisition
• HMV - advised the banks (led by The Royal Bank of Scotland plc and Lloyds) on the ongoing and widely reported debt restructuring of UK record company, HMV
• Almatis - advised the company on its US$1bn global restructuring through a chapter 11 process
• Dubai Group LLC - the co-ordinating committee of the secured/unsecured creditors on the leading Dubai Group LLC restructuring
• European Directories Group  - advised the senior lenders on the restructuring of the European Directories group
• Waterford Wedgewood – advised Deloitte as administrators on the administration of UK china and ceramics manufacturer Waterford Wedgewood
• Gala Coral Group – advised the senior lenders on the innovative debt restructuring of the Gala Coral Group featuring a debt for equity swap
• Lehman Brothers International (Europe) - advised PwC as administrators of Lehman Brothers International (Europe), the largest corporate insolvency in history
• Woolworths plc  - advised Deloitte as joint administrators of the UK retailer Woolworths plc in connection with  the administration of the UK national retailer
• Ferretti SpA  - advised Ferretti SpA, the Italian luxury yacht manufacturer, in connection with the ongoing restructuring of its €1.2bn  leveraged debt facilities
• Countrywide Plc – advised Oaktree Capital in relation to the proposed restructuring via debt for equity swap for UK estate agency group Countrywide Plc
• McCarthy & Stone/ Crest Nicholson – advised the senior lender steering committees on the restructuring of UK house builders McCarthy & Stone and Crest Nicholson