Brian Ford, P.C.

In addition to Brian’s robust Debt Finance practice, he is also an integral part of the Firm’s Restructuring Practice Group and has provided his financing expertise on some the Firm’s largest restructurings.

Restructurings

• Representing Frontier Communications Corporation and its 103 debtor subsidiaries in their prearranged Chapter 11 restructuring in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. With over $17.5 billion in outstanding funded debt, Frontier’s Chapter 11 cases were the second largest restructuring of 2020. Frontier, together with its subsidiaries, have over 4 million customers, and 18,000 employees across 29 states. The company’s prearranged plan, which was confirmed in approximately four months, effected a balance sheet restructuring that will reduce the company’s outstanding funded debt by over $10 billion, carries broad stakeholder support and proposes unimpairment of all general unsecured creditors.
• Represented Windstream Holdings, Inc., and its debtor subsidiaries in their Chapter 11 restructuring in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Windstream is a leading provider of advanced network communications, technology, broadband, entertainment and security solutions to consumers and small businesses in 18 states. In bankruptcy, Windstream commenced litigation to recharacterize a $3.5 billion spin-off and master lease of certain telecommunications network assets. That litigation resulted in an innovative settlement that provided over approximately $1.2 billion in net present value and billions of dollars of improvement to Windstream’s telecommunications infrastructure. Windstream also confirmed a Chapter 11 plan or reorganization that addresses more than $5.6 billion in funded debt obligations, provides for a $750 million equity rights offering, and positions Windstream to achieve its long-term goals.
• Represented an ad hoc committee of senior secured lenders to CGG S.A. and its subsidiaries in connection with a prearranged restructuring through concurrent French sauvegarde, Chapter 15, and Chapter 11 proceedings. CGG is based in France and globally operates a geoscience services and equipment company supporting commercial oil and gas exploration and production. CGG’s prearranged restructuring addressed its over $2 billion in funded debt obligations, including three tranches of secured loans across its capital structure.
  Co-represented an ad hoc committee of unsecured noteholders of Peabody Energy Corporation, the world’s largest publicly traded, private-sector coal company, in its chapter 11 cases, which will address approximately $8.8 billion in funded debt obligations and other legacy liabilities. The ad hoc committee members collectively hold approximately $2.0 billion of unsecured note claims and certain of the members are lenders within the debtors’ DIP facility.
• Represented Patriot Coal Corporation and certain of its affiliates, producers and marketers of coal in the eastern United States with several active mining complexes in West Virginia, in their Chapter 11 proceedings before the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. As of the petition date of May 12, 2015, Patriot and its affiliates had funded debt of approximately $790 million as well as significant and complex legacy and environmental liabilities. This was Patriot’s second Chapter 11 filing.
• Represented an ad hoc committee of second lien noteholders of Alpha Natural Resources, Inc., one of the largest coal producers in the United States, in chapter 11 restructuring, which addressed approximately $4.2 billion in funded debt obligations and other legacy liabilities.
• Represented Southcross Holdings LP and its subsidiaries (including Southcross Energy Partners, L.P., a master limited partnership), which provides gas gathering, compression, treating, processing and NGL fractionation and transportation services and had more than $1.4 billion in funded debt and preferred equity obligations. Southcross implemented the restructuring through a prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the privately-held holding company―the first sponsor-backed prepackaged bankruptcy in the oil and gas industry. This 15-day bankruptcy was the shortest Chapter 11 reorganization case in U.S. history for a debtor with more than $500 million in liabilities.