Our Case Studies

This thought to be the first solvent Scheme of Arrangement for a UK branch of a US corporation. The case was managed out of London. The application was approved on behalf of the US based Company for a formal order to establish the solvent scheme which related to the company’s London operations. It successfully allowed the US insurer to close down its UK business despite having written policies that would have taken 20 years to finalise without the use of the Scheme.

We as financial experts for a US-based hedge fund in their litigation against the Irish Minister for Finance. The dispute centred around the Minister’s decision to use powers granted under the Credit Institutions (Stabilisation) Act 2010 to cram down subordinated bondholders in Allied Irish Bank, whilst inverting traditional creditor hierarchy to leave shareholders intact. The report covered a number of key areas including the importance of creditor hierarchy in capital markets, precedent examples in European bank resolution (e.g. Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley).

We advised and provided interim management resources to TSX listed AgJunction Inc., assisting the company to implement a strategic corporate restructuring and operational turnaround. This resulted in a successful shift to refocus on technology leadership within the agricultural industry. Through the period of Farber’s engagement, the company’s share price increased by approximately 70%.

Towards the end of 2012, the Board of Directors initiated a restructuring mandate with the directive to implement a profit-focused corporate strategy under the leadership of the CEO.

BTG Global Advisory worked with the Board and leadership to focus on three overarching priorities: returning the company to its core agricultural business, streamlining and simplifying the business, and adopting market-driven innovation.

As a result of our involvement savings from the overall restructuring were approximately $7 million per annum, which was achieved through improved gross margins and reduced operating overhead.

The corporate restructuring incorporated a number of inter-related initiatives, including the disposal of the non-agriculture-related business, streamlining the organization with a new management team, relocating the head office closer to its customer base in the heartland of the North American agricultural industry, outsourcing manufacturing operations, closing overlapping administrative offices and reducing overhead, rationalizing products and SKUs, and a renaming and rebranding.

We were retained by the FDIC as financial adviser to the failed Arkansas National Bank Financial (ANB), headquartered in Arkansas. We acted as the loan sale advisor for a $1.2 billion construction and acquisition/development portfolio, ultimately this assignment culminated in a structured transaction sale to a third party.

We were appointed chief restructuring officer (CRO) for PUIG Development Group. PUIG was a south Florida real estate company, primarily involved in condo conversion projects. We were retained as CRO prior to chapter 11 filing and essentially took over all decision making for the company.

PUIG owned or controlled approximately 25 LLC’s with a significant number of bank and mezzanine lenders.

When we became involved, there was in excess of $300 million of debt and 27 active projects. Our role included reducing overheads, preparing a plan of reorganization, facilitating relations and exchange of information between banks, owners

and investors, and ultimately implementing and executing a plan or reorganization and liquidation for the company.

We were appointed chief restructuring officer (CRO) for Amtrust Mortgage Corporation. Amtrust was a South Eastern US mortgage company that closed over $1.3 billion of mortgage loans in 2006.

We were retained as CRO for the business and charged with running the successful wind-down of the business, including the funding of over $40 million in committed loans and an orderly liquidation of over $120 million in funded mortgage loans and other company assets.

Additionally we were retained as CRO and financial advisor to Amtrust Financial Corporation and related entities in their Chapter 11 filings, The companies, based out of Ohio, have operations in insurance, securities, banking and real estate investments. We have assisted with more than 360 sale transactions, prepared cash flow and related variance analysis, managed tax deconsolidation issues, performed analysis of existing real estate assets while advising on an ongoing basis, as well as reviewing SOFA’s and bankruptcy schedules.

We were appointed as financial advisor to the official committee of unsecured creditors in the Nova Holding Clinton County LLC bankruptcy in the district of Delaware. Nova is a 70 million gallon refiner and marketer of renewable diesel fuel products and related co-products using both animal and vegetable feedstock. Our services included a review of operating results and projected budgets, review analysis and oversight of the 363 sale process, evaluation of reorganization and/or 363 sale proposals, forensic investigation in historic use of cash for operations and constructions, and analyzing claims, amongst other things.

We were appointed by creditors/investors of Traditional Values Management. Our task was to recover and realise the assets of this registered Managed Investment Scheme across four Australian states. These assets included pine forests, water rights, debtor books and physical real estate. Our work involved complex investigation and litigation against numerous parties including auditors, accountants, directors, and creditors for the benefit of the scheme creditors and 350 unit holders.

We successfully realised the majority of the assets with, litigation against professional advisors still ongoing.

We were appointed to act for the beneficiaries of a high profile Ponzi scheme.

This was a major instruction and involved locating, assessing and verifying beneficiaries and their claims. After this intense process we recovered and distributed $A26M to numerous beneficiaries located around the world but primarily in Japan.

We were appointed by Gowinta Farms Pty (Gowinta) as administrator with support of one of Australia's leading commercial banks.

Gowinta operated major strawberry, raspberry, pineapple and lychee farms with three separate /our-firms in Queensland. When we were instructed it soon became apparent that the business model was flawed, so we changed this resulting in a greater share of the annual harvest financial risk being held by the fruit marketers. As a result of this and other structural and financial changes, including operational efficiencies and improved management reporting the business is now profitable and has been sold as a going concern.