30+ years of M&A, venture investments, distressed investments and turnarounds across multiple sectors, including transportation, energy, consumer, telecom, technology, homebuilding, insurance and financial services.
What follows is a partial summary.
2024 — Present · Transportation · Restructuring
Titan Transportation
Chief Restructuring Officer
A transportation company losing cash — equipment finance costs running at ~$2.5 million per month, mounting defunct equipment, demand collapse and oversupply. Bankruptcy filed as a protective and necessary measure, excluding and preserving the core business. Used to stay creditors and preserve equipment while increasing cashflows and recutting financing terms, at minimal execution cost.
Situation
A transportation industry collapse: reduction in demand met with an expansion in supply. Lease costs alone running $2.5 million per month, geared to higher historic revenues. Equipment, balance sheet, cashflows, relationships and culture, all under pressure simultaneously.
Response
Three coordinated moves. Preserve critical equipment by using automatic stay. Reduce fixed costs: shed defunct equipment, parking lots and facilities and recut amortization. Reposition for growth on a leaner cost base, with a longer plan to rebuild organization and revenues underway.
Outcome
Equipment rationalized and preserved. Lease costs cut to less than $1 million per month. Cleaner cost base and structure, allowing the company to book revenue and grow off a more efficient footprint. Organizational rebuild, ongoing.
“We need trucks and trailers to do business. We had to reset fixed costs and preserve cashflow and the core … and reset to grow again.”
2019 · Consumer · Transformation
Loot Crate
Chief Transformation Officer
A subscription business in contraction, caught in a structural trap in the model: cash arrives when subscribers prepay, but delivery obligations linger even when growth reverses. Compounded by an attempted insider takeover. Overbuilt opex and org. Unwieldy payables and debt.
Situation
A subscription business in contraction with a working capital crisis unique to the model. Cash arrives early when subscribers prepay; delivery obligations remain even after growth stops. Compounded by a stakeholder revolt and attempted insider takeover. Debt in default; new funding needed; vendors past due.
Response
Three converging crises, managed in parallel. Secure funding and renegotiate service and product providers and other past dues. Defer and streamline subscriber deliveries to extend runway. Cut costs, including by terminating bad or underperforming actors. Then effect an orderly 363 sale to cleanse the balance sheet and to preserve rights against previous insiders.
Outcome
A 363 sale closed in roughly 45 days through Delaware bankruptcy court, against an industry expectation of 90 to 120 days. Litigation against defendants recovered approximately $9 million. Multistate sales tax liability of roughly $6 million addressed.
“We stabilized the base and, in the end, packaged a rapid distressed sale. They said it would liquidate and it would take 120 days. We did not have that time and did not agree.”
2019 — 2025 · Insurance and Tech · Transformation
Quility
Chief Strategy Officer, later Chief Strategy and Digital Officer
A single-product, single-channel insurance distribution business that had reached a natural limit to its own expansion. The work was to transform a high-performing, recruiting-oriented independent agent organization into a diversified, digital-first platform — one capable of competing directly in the modern insurtech market.
Situation
A successful but structurally constrained insurance marketing organization. A strong recruiting engine and deep agent network, with a single-product, single-channel and single-process orientation. Business recognized for years as one of the country’s fastest-growing private companies, but growth had plateaued against model limits. Meanwhile the world was digitizing and COVID was on the horizon. The next chapter required a different kind of company.
Response
Three coordinated moves. Restructure to segregate agent-facing distribution from new data, technology and lead segments. Acquire a complementary partner to broaden product base and expand distribution model. Build and deploy technology stack — e.g., intelligent product recommendations, instant underwriting, digital lead gen and automated engagement and agency management.
Outcome
A transformed organization: production doubled, the product base and channels diversified and the company named “Insurtech of the Year.” A national distribution force operating under a unified holding structure, a digital platform serving clients alongside agents and a competitive position in a market the original business had not serviced. The business secured a significant minority investment.
“A successful organization that had reached the limits of its own model. The work was to meet the new challenge and build the company it needed and wanted to become.”
2017 · Energy · Special Situations
Energy XXI
Special Situations Advisor
A complete energy complex collapse. The parent company had acquired a more conservative offshore drilling operation and was attempting to consolidate the two into one. Bonds from the acquired entity were trading at roughly 1.5 cents on the dollar. Bondholders were resigned to total loss. The structure said otherwise.
Situation
A complete energy complex collapse. The parent had acquired a more conservative offshore operation and was attempting to substantively consolidate the two into one bankruptcy estate. Bonds from the acquired entity were trading at roughly 1.5 cents on the dollar — a $300 million issue trading at $4.5 million total.
Response
The parent did not have the legal right to substantively consolidate. The acquired entity could be peeled out and run on its own. Original management was re-engaged. The acquired entity held proven reserves; the parent depended on those reserves to fund its probables and possibles.
Outcome
Bonds purchased at roughly 1.5 cents traded up to approximately 30 cents on the dollar following the revised and settled transaction — on the order of a 20x move in about four months. The bankruptcy court made a substantial contribution fee award, citing a contribution to overall resolution.
“The old business was valid, and the old issuance could not be ignored. Illusory legal concepts cannot simply steamroll a cram-down.”
2016 — 2017 · Consumer · Liquidation
Performance Sports Group
Chief Liquidation Officer
A rapid sale process that had locked in minimal value for equity holders, designed to clear at just enough to satisfy shareholders. Rather than reopen the sale, the work was to find value in the levers that remained: claims, litigation rights and questions that ultimately made legal precedent.
Situation
A rapid sale that had been engineered to clear at just enough value to satisfy shareholders willing and forced to take a cheap exit rather than fight for what the assets were worth. Too many claims. No incentive to speed recoveries.
Response
Work the levers that remained. Resolve $300 million in submitted claims down by engaging them one by one and rejecting the unsupportable. Pursue litigation rights, including bankruptcy court fights that made precedent. Speed recoveries and devise a plan to handle complex cross-border confusion, costs and delays.
Outcome
Recovery of 54 cents per share for equity holders, after legal and advisory fees. Initial estimate at the start of the case was a range of 48 to 54 cents. Landed at the top of the predicted range. Effecting interim distribution to maximize IRR.
“Drove both, net proceeds and timing. If we can cut costs, create solutions and reduce your time to cash, we can deliver you value.”
2014 · Aviation · Restructuring
Global Aero Logistics
Restructuring Engagement, MatlinPatterson
A dual-division global airline where the scheduled-service unit was insolvent based on market dynamics while the long-term contracted business — a primary US military troop and cargo transport — remained cash-flow positive. The work was to preserve the good airline while bankrupting the bad one inside the same structure: bankruptcy and lease renegotiation, secured-debt forbearance, and passenger contingency planning.
A legal arbitrage based on established fraudulent conveyance rules. Bonds were trading at one cent on the dollar when the firm marked its position. The trade was settled at over sixty cents — a return in excess of fifty times the cost basis. Critical moves in multiple courts established the precedent and outcome.
Announced May 2008 · Homebuilding · Distressed Investment
Standard Pacific
Distressed Investment, MatlinPatterson
The largest homebuilder on the West Coast, caught down-cycle, overvalued, with bonds trading at twenty to twenty-five cents on the dollar. An analysis of restricted investment covenants in the company’s earliest bonds — covenants set when the company was much smaller — revealed a latent fulcrum position. Roughly $750 million invested across equity and bonds.
The transaction was structured to aviod triggering Revlon duties in Delaware: a balanced board, a “white squire” deal, and the right to appoint the chief executive. Bonds were exchanged post-investment at a substantial discount to increase equity returns. The company was eventually sold to a national homebuilding conglomerate for approximately $2.5 billion — a multiple of roughly three times invested capital.
2007 — 2010 · Telecom · Bond Arbitrage
Nortel
Distressed Investment, MatlinPatterson
A valuation arbitrage against a grossly undervalued intrinsic asset base. The infrastructure was unfamiliar to most credit analysts, but not to the firm. Deployed advisors and tactics in the case to reveal the hidden value, including bidding assets and proposing reorg structures. Roughly $300 million in bonds purchased; sold for approximately 3x.
2001 · Telecom · Distressed Investment
WorldCom
Distressed Investment, MatlinPatterson
The matter that, by professional consensus, formed the basis of the modern distressed investing industry. The firm’s position helped establish the playing field on which much of the practice that followed has been conducted. Largest creditors, driving reorg, with multiple capital arbitrage opportunities.
Engagements not listed here are protected by confidentiality. Inquiries to the practice.
What They Have in Common
Every one of these started the same way.
A context nobody had evaluated carefully enough. A pattern nobody had identified. A room full of people managing the proceeding instead of pursuing a result. This work has changed outcomes, law and industries.
