This article highlights certain legal and practical issues related to making secured bridge loans to emerging companies. In particular, this article focuses on issues related to subordination of VC-provided bridge loans to existing and future senior debt and to appropriately structuring security agreements.
Recent court decisions may have seriously eroded secured creditors’ rights. In this two-part article, a leading restructuring attorney has teamed up with a well-known turnaround professional to describe in Part I new challenges facing lenders, and in Part II to suggest strategies and tactics to help lenders protect themselves.
A letter from William F. Plein, Past Chairman, Commercial Finance Association
In the panic-ridden days following the 2008 financial meltdown, the threatened companies that fared the best were most often those that communicated whatever hard facts they had at hand … even if incomplete or unflattering. When a company’s survival is at stake, honest intentions and even a small amount of clarity can go a long way.
In this issue, we explore the “new” world of Wells Fargo Capital Finance in a roundtable discussion with seven of its senior-most executives. Here we learn how the acquisition of the former Wachovia Capital Finance group has resulted in an ABL powerhouse that’s certain to prove the whole can indeed be greater than the sum of its parts.
Given the long list of costly, contentious and ultimately unsuccessful retail bankruptcies, much attention has been given to the particulars surrounding Filene’s Basement’s Chapter 11 proceedings that culminated with a §363 sale to Syms Corp. What follows is a behind-the-scenes look at these events that bucked a trend in more ways than one.
In late March, Cole Taylor’s Michael Sharkey participated in a panel of M&A experts at the Association for Corporate Growth’s Capital Connection in Atlanta. The panel spoke to the challenges of getting deals done in the current marketplace. We asked Sharkey to bring the essential points of this panel to ABF Journal readers.
For the third year in a row, ABF Journal polled senior lenders from leading asset-based lending shops. And while last year, survey participants reported the somber beat of an economy in recession persisted, the sentiment seems to have sweetened in the time that has passed.
Missing deadlines, poor data and information flow, and reworking previously completed borrowing bases and valuations engender costs that fall heavily on service providers, but also impact the resources of a lender. Deals subject to extensive delays form a poor foundation for future cooperation between the lender and the company. The following article offers five point to consider in order to avoid a drain on resources — financial or otherwise.
Each year at this time, we at ABF Journal like to check in with leading asset-based lenders for a review of the year that’s been and a look forward to the one ahead. It became clear that we are on the brink of something promising as we push further into 2010; but with lenders and borrowers still testing the waters, it’s not entirely clear when they’ll take the plunge. What seems fairly certain, however, is that when they do, they may not dive as deep as they once did.