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| Best Corporate Restructuring House: Houlihan Lokey |
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| Also nominated: Lazard and Moelis |
The reorganization plan of Lehman Brothers Holdings – described by US bankruptcy judge James Peck as "the biggest, most incredibly complex and most impossibly challenging international bankruptcy that ever was" – became effective on March 6.
Houlihan Lokey, Euromoney’s corporate restructuring house for 2012, was intimately involved in this process from the start as adviser to the official committee of unsecured creditors.
"Never before have divergent holders of $350 billion in claims recognized the benefits of pragmatic compromise and come together in support of a single Chapter 11 plan," the judge continued. "The largest ever unplanned bankruptcy that started in chaos, accelerated the financial crisis and eroded confidence in the global financial system also has yielded the most overwhelming outpouring of creditor consensus in the history of insolvency law."
By definition, creditors in a distressed situation have vastly differing motivations, so getting agreement is the most important skill of the restructuring adviser. "Forging consensus is one of our strengths, and it has been a common theme of this year," says Brad Geer, managing director at Houlihan in the US.