Distressed Boutique Investment Banks (We Hope You Already Shorted This One)

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So, you don't see this everyday: Greenhill & Co., a boutique investment bank that dabbles in restructuring advisory work, announced a "self-help" transaction - powered by a new $300mm Goldman Sachs credit facility and $10mm from each of Chairman Bob Greenhill and CEO Scott Bok. The (quasi go-private?) transaction will include paying off debt, a tender for shares, and a substantial reduction-cum-elimination of the firm's elevated dividend. Our first question is whether shareholders get to waterboard Mr. Bok as part of the deal? Now that the company is levered, by some measures, to the tune of approx 9x, what kind of fee do we think its restructuring team will get for the (inevitable) restructuring of the new debt? 

What the Pros Say (2/26/17)

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  • 2016 Ranked. Jones Day LLP, the most prolific distributor of bankruptcy-related content, released this highly unscientific ranking of top-10 publicly traded bankruptcy filings. Go big or go home, Jones Day: if you're going to put out a top 10, don't pull the old "if we rank our own deal second, nobody will notice the blatant self-promotion" trick. Go #1 and own it (arguably deserved here, anyway).
  • Cross-border. Jay Goffman and Christine Okike of Skadden discuss Hanjin Shipping and Chapter 15.
  • Out of Court Restructuring Alternatives. Bankruptcy professionals are really racheting up their tech skills a notch: here, Sam Newman of Gibson Dunn, Jim Baer of CMBG Advisors Inc., Michael Ozawa of Enterprise Management Advisors LLC, Kim Withrow of Bibby Financial Services and Neil Morganbesser and Alex Kasdan of DelMorgan & Co. discuss, by webinar, options like ABCs which our friends in the VC space love to use to keep their failures secret. Shhhhhh.
  • Retail. Greenhill & Co.'s Christopher Grubb opines about the state of retail in this Bloomberg video clip. Choice quote about coming retail bankruptcies: "I think there will be 30 or 40 of meaningful scale."

What the Pros Say (2/12/17)

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  • European Distressed Debt. Orrick and Greenhill & Co. Inc. team up to summarize the state of European distressed debt in 2017.
  • Malls. Kenneth Rosen of Lowenstein Sandler LLP discusses the need for malls to diversify given a multitude of challenges to retail. 
  • Marblegate/TIA - King & Spalding LLP's Michael Rupe, W. Austin Jowers, Jeffrey Pawlitz, Christopher Boies and Michael Handler offer their thoughts on the recent much-discussed ruling on the Trust Indenture Act. 
  • Subordination. Michael Friedman and Leo Gagion of Chapman & Cutler LLP discuss the recent Ninth Circuit decision on subordination. 
  • Survey. AlixPartners released its 2017 restructuring experts survey. Read it here. And here is a summary. 

News for the Week of 01/29/17

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  • Artificial Intelligence. Throw the phrase "AI-based" in front of anything and all of the sudden it's like gold. Including retail. We're pretty sure we'll start seeing established companies start rebranding to curtail further devolution, e.g., neiman-marcus.ai or Macy's.ai. After all, we have MacGuyver back on TV and Luke Skywalker back in the theaters...might as well get nostalgic for .com-style frenzy. 
  • Boutique IBanking. An interesting review of the stock performance of one of the original public boutique investment banking firms out there: Greenhill & Co. 
  • Coal. Longview Power CEO Jeff Keffer's assessment of the industry. TL;DR...at least under Trump there's a chance...
  • Conflicts. Believe it or not, conflicts DO exist in bankruptcy court. We're just as shocked as you, but in the Transtar bankruptcy cases, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP submitted a motion seeking to withdraw from the case after it determined that "in responding to requests by the Examiner in the course of its investigation, WF&G's own interests may conflict with the interests of the Debtors, or create an appearance of such a conflict." Pinch us. Jones Day LLP is apparently taking Willkie's place for the debtors.
  • Hedge funds. This about sums it up: "No matter what initial capital you give the hedge fund to start with, the hedge fund will become richer than you since its real talent is transferring your wealth into its coffers..."  Indeed, with 2/20, a hedge fund making 10% will make more money than its investors in 17 years.
  • Malls. We probably give the impression that we really love to shop given all of the mall talk lately. But, c'mon, you can talk to us until you're blue in the face about A Malls and C Malls but the truth is that A-LL malls are looking increasingly screwed. There are so many experiential possibilities. 
  • Neiman Marcus as a High Yield Sinkhole. The debt is plummeting: some holders are hitting eject on high yield retailers. And more concerns about liquidity in the bond market.
  • Taxis. So, the Uber effect is contagious? Seemingly so. Capital One Financial holds a distressed (and distressing) taxi medallion lending portfolio. Ugly chart here. Clearly the business traveler has embraced non-taxi options.
Natural gas price projections.

Natural gas price projections.