Distressed Diaries — Weil we have your attention, what is fair?

A lot has changed in European restructuring this year.

Two more appeals in the UK courts — Thames Water and Petrofac — led to **Waldorf** failing at the first hurdle as judges increasingly focus on being fairer to creditors who are considered out of the money.

The appeals have created a lot of uncertainty as restructuring practitioners are trying to work out what exactly is considered fair? The Supreme Court hearing on Waldorf’s case in February hopefully should provide more clarity.

Issuers have been starting to shy away from using the UK Restructuring Plan to avoid the risk of their plan being reversed by the Court of Appeal. Instead they are increasingly turning to looking into ways to implement out of court through liability management exercises in other European jurisdictions.

We saw this in Selecta which implemented its restructuring through a distressed disposal in the Netherlands.

Private credit is also in the lime light this year as the market has been growing its presence in distress both as providers of fresh capital and as private credit lenders end up taking the keys.

In this episode we delve into all these emerging themes with Daniel Bayfield, Barrister at South Square and Lois Deasey and Matt Benson, restructuring partners from Weil. All three provide insights on their involvement in all of the above mentioned cases.

Weil and 9fin initially sat down to discuss these topics at the Weil & 9fin Private Credit & Restructuring Autumn Forum on 8 October (find here some of the highlights of that day). This podcast is for the benefit of those who could not attend!