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- December 2020
- Case
PG&E and the First Climate Change Bankruptcy
By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah L. Abbott
In early 2020, the California-based utility PG&E filed a second amended plan of reorganization. PG&E had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the face of more than $30 billion of legal claims brought against it for its alleged role in causing California wildfires. The...
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- Fall 2020
- Article
Sizing Up Corporate Restructuring in the COVID Crisis
By: Robin Greenwood, Benjamin Iverson and David Thesmar
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the financial and legal system will need to deal with a surge of financial distress in the business sector. Some firms will be able to survive, while others will face bankruptcy and thus need to be liquidated or reorganized. Many...
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- August 2020 (Revised December 2020)
- Case
Latam Airlines and COVID-19: Seeking Bankruptcy Protection in the United States
By: Laura Alfaro, Mauricio Larrain, Carlos Vilches and Sarah Jeong
On May 26, 2020, Latam Airlines became the largest airline in the world to be driven to bankruptcy by COVID-19. With a complex debt structure and international investor composition, the company decided to file for bankruptcy protection in the United States, which...
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- September 2019
- Article
Bankruptcy Spillovers
By: Shai Bernstein, Emanuele Colonnelli, Xavier Giroud and Benjamin Iverson
How do different bankruptcy approaches affect the local economy? Using U.S. Census microdata, we explore the spillover effects of reorganization and liquidation on geographically proximate firms. We exploit the random assignment of bankruptcy judges as a source of...
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- April 2019 (Revised November 2019)
- Case
Sears: The Demise of an American Icon
By: Kristin Mugford and Sarah L. Abbott
In 2019, ESL Investments’ $5.2 billion offer to purchase Sears Holdings out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, was accepted, despite opposition from the company's unsecured creditors and other parties. ESL, which was led by Eddie Lampert, had acquired a stake in Sears following...
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- Article
The Ownership and Trading of Debt Claims in Chapter 11 Restructurings
By: Victoria Ivashina, Benjamin Iverson and David C. Smith
What is the ownership structure of bankrupt debt claims? How does the ownership evolve though bankruptcy? And how does debt ownership influence Chapter 11 outcomes? To answer these questions, we construct a data set that identifies the entire capital structure for 136...
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- 2015
- Working Paper
Cashing Out: The Rise of M&A in Bankruptcy
By: Stuart Gilson, Edith Hotchkiss and Matthew Osborn
The use of M&A in bankruptcy has increased dramatically in recent years, leading to concerns that the Chapter 11 process has shifted toward excessive liquidation of viable firms. In this paper, we argue that the rise of M&A has blurred traditional distinctions between...
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Keywords:
M＆A;
Chapter 11;
Distress;
Bankruptcy;
Mergers and Acquisitions;
Insolvency and Bankruptcy
- December 2012 (Revised November 2014)
- Case
W.R. Grace & Co.: Dealing with Asbestos Torts
By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah L. Abbott
A manufacturer of building products and specialty chemicals, W. R. Grace & Co. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2001 in response to a flood of lawsuits alleging that its products contained asbestos, and had caused hundreds of thousands of people to contract...
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Keywords:
Bankruptcy Reorganization;
Business Failures;
Environmental Regulations;
Class Action Lawsuits;
Natural Environment;
Valuation;
Health Disorders;
Capital Structure;
Restructuring;
Lawsuits and Litigation;
Chemicals;
Crisis Management;
Insolvency and Bankruptcy;
Legal Liability;
Construction Industry;
Chemical Industry;
United States
- August 2012 (Revised August 2013)
- Background Note
Competency-Destroying Technology Transitions: Why the Transition to Digital Is Particularly Challenging
By: Willy Shih
Some technology transitions are exceedingly difficult for incumbent firms to execute. The bankruptcy filing by the Eastman Kodak Company highlighted the difficulty companies faced when their core business transitioned from an analog to a digital world. Kodak's business...
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Keywords:
Technology Transitions;
Competency-destroying;
Digital;
Analog;
Digital Transition;
Modular;
Modularity;
Technological Change;
Radical Innovation;
Incremental Innovation;
Architectural Innovation;
Modular Innovation;
Sustaining Innovation;
Competency-enhancing;
Noise Propagation;
Perfect Copying;
Digital Music;
Digital Media;
Consumer Electronics;
Kodak;
Sony;
Panasonic;
Disruptive Innovation;
Technology Adoption;
Transition;
Change Management;
Consumer Products Industry;
United States
- December 2009 (Revised January 2017)
- Case
Lyondell Chemical Company
By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah Abbott
Hit with an industry recession and the global financial crisis of 2008, in January 2009 LyondellBasell Industries AF S.C.A., one of the world's largest internationally diversified chemical companies headquartered in The Netherlands, placed its U.S. operations and a...
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- August 2009 (Revised February 2013)
- Case
Eddie Bauer (A)
By: Paul Healy, Sharon Katz and Aldo Sesia
In June 2005, Eddie Bauer, the specialty apparel retailer, emerged from bankruptcy. Under the plan of reorganization former creditors converted their debt into common shares, taking 100% ownership in the reconstituted company. Large banks-including Bank of America and...
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- March 2009
- Background Note
Note on the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA)
By: Stuart C. Gilson
In 2005, new legislation was passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by the President that introduced a number of major amendments to U.S. bankruptcy law, affecting both business and consumer bankruptcies. This legislation, called the Bankruptcy Abuse...
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- January 2008 (Revised May 2009)
- Case
Restructuring at Delphi Corporation (A)
By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah L. Abbott
Delphi Corporation, operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, has filed a plan of reorganization with the court, under which a consortium of hedge funds led by Appaloosa Management will invest up to $2.6 billion in new equity. Also participating in the plan is...
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- March 2007 (Revised May 2012)
- Case
PRG-Schultz International
By: Paul W. Marshall and James Weber
PRG-Schultz will run out of cash within a couple of months unless the new CEO can reduce costs and restructure the company's debt. PRG was the dominant market leader in the audit recovery industry. The industry consisted of firms which employed accounting professionals...
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- November 2006 (Revised August 2012)
- Background Note
A Strategic Perspective on Bankruptcy
By: Bill George, Jim Sharpe and Andrew N. McLean
An overview of bankruptcy procedures in U.S. courts, recent filing data and a framework for evaluating a reorganization with creditors or considering opening a court-supervised reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code.
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- February 2005 (Revised November 2012)
- Supplement
UAL 2004: Pulling Out of Bankruptcy (CW)
By: Daniel Baird Bergstresser, Kenneth A. Froot and Darren Robert Smart
UAL is a large air transportation company with roots that go back to the 1920s. As a legacy carrier, going back to before the 1978 deregulation of air transportation markets, United Airlines is burdened with cost structures that make it difficult to compete with newer...
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- February 2005 (Revised June 2006)
- Case
UAL, 2004: Pulling Out of Bankruptcy
By: Daniel Baird Bergstresser, Kenneth A. Froot and Darren Robert Smart
UAL is a large air transportation company with roots that go back to the 1920s. As a legacy carrier, going back to before the 1978 deregulation of air transportation markets, United Airlines is burdened with cost structures that make it difficult to compete with newer...
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- January 2005
- Case
Managing Failure: American Bankruptcy Law at a Crossroads
By: David A. Moss, Mary Oey and Jonathan Lackow
Introduces the core principles and challenges of bankruptcy law (both individual and corporate) against the backdrop of the early 1970s, when the U.S. bankruptcy system appeared to be failing. With personal bankruptcy filings at record levels and successful corporate...
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- January 2002 (Revised January 2003)
- Case
Finova Group, Inc. (A), The
By: Stuart C. Gilson and Perry Fagan
Finova Group, a $14 billion commercial finance company, filed for Chapter 11 in early March 2001, in what was one of the largest U.S. bankruptcy filings of all time and the largest corporate bond default since the Great Depression. While in Chapter 11, Finova became...
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- Article
Valuation of Bankrupt Firms
By: S. C. Gilson, E. S. Hotchkiss and R. S. Ruback
This study compares the market value of firms that reorganize in bankruptcy with estimates of value based on management's published cash flow projections. We estimate firm values using models that have been shown in other contexts to generate relatively precise...
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