Cascadia Capital, an independent investment bank serving middle-market clients globally, launched its restructuring and special situations practice with the addition of veteran advisors Lorie Beers as managing director and head of restructuring and special situations, Carl Comstock as director, and several additional professionals expected to join the team in the near term.
The new practice significantly expands Cascadia’s Capital Markets platform and enhances the firm’s ability to advise companies, financial sponsors, lenders, creditor groups, boards of directors and other stakeholders navigating periods of operational, financial, or market dislocation. The team will provide advisory services across liability management, distressed mergers and acquisitions, recapitalizations, creditor advisory, rescue financings, strategic alternatives evaluations and special situations transactions.
“Building a differentiated and fully integrated capital markets platform has been a major strategic priority for Cascadia,” Michael Butler, chairman and CEO of Cascadia Capital, said. “Lorie and Carl have built highly respected special situations advisory teams throughout their careers and bring a sophisticated, solutions-oriented approach to advising clients through complex situations. Their addition further strengthens our ability to deliver integrated strategic and capital structure advisory solutions to clients across all market environments.”
The restructuring and special situations practice will operate within Cascadia’s Capital Markets Group alongside the firm’s debt advisory and equity capital solutions capabilities, creating an integrated platform serving clients across both performing and stressed situations. The expansion comes amid growing demand for sophisticated advisory solutions as companies, sponsors and lenders navigate increasingly complex financing and capital structure environments.
“Companies and investors today are facing increasingly complex capital structure and operating challenges, creating demand for sophisticated, industry-informed advisory capabilities,” Tom Mills, head of capital markets at Cascadia Capital, said. “Lorie, Carl and the broader team bring decades of experience advising clients through highly complex situations, and their addition significantly enhances our ability to support clients throughout the full corporate lifecycle.”
Beers brings more than 35 years of experience spanning investment banking and legal advisory. Prior to joining Cascadia, she founded and led special situations practices at Intrepid Investment Bankers and Cowen. Throughout her career, she has advised companies and stakeholders across a broad range of industries experiencing financial, operational or strategic disruption.
“One of the things that stood out most about Cascadia was the strength and depth of the firm’s industry banking platform,” Beers said. “In complex situations, sector expertise and longstanding industry relationships matter tremendously. Cascadia has built a team of true industry bankers with deep domain knowledge. We saw a compelling opportunity to combine that industry expertise with sophisticated liability management and special situations advisory capabilities in a way that is highly differentiated in the middle market, and particularly valuable for companies navigating critical inflection points.”
Comstock joins as part of the founding team and brings extensive experience advising management teams, lenders, boards, financial sponsors and stakeholder groups in complex and special situations transactions. Over the course of his career, he has advised on transactions involving more than $50 billion in liabilities and completed dozens of distressed sale and recapitalization transactions across multiple sectors.
