Derek I. Hunter

Representative Company Matters

• Packers Sanitation Services Inc. — Represented Packers Sanitation Services Inc., a Blackstone portfolio company and food safety sanitation company, in an out-of-court deleveraging transaction with 100% of its unsecured noteholders. The transaction provides Packers with incremental liquidity and a reduced debt load, and extends runway to continue operational recovery and value creation via maturity extension.
• MultiPlan Corporation — Represented MultiPlan Corporation (“MultiPlan”) (NYSE: MPLN), a leading provider of healthcare technology and data solutions, in a comprehensive refinancing of its debt capital structure through a series of exchange transactions. The transactions launched following the execution of a transaction support agreement with certain ad hoc groups of lenders collectively owning approximately 78% of MultiPlan’s outstanding debt. Over 99% of MultiPlan’s debt holders across four tranches of debt, including a revolving credit facility, term loan, and secured, unsecured, and convertible PIK notes, participated in the transactions, which extended maturities on approximately $4.5 billion of funded debt and positioned MultiPlan for more sustainable long-term growth. The exchange transactions were announced on December 24, 2024, and closed on January 30, 2024.
• West Marine, Inc. ― Represented West Marine, Inc. and its affiliates, the nation’s leading omnichannel provider in the marine aftermarket, in multiple transactions, including a comprehensive out-of-court restructuring of its existing capital structure supported by 100 percent of the Company’s existing lenders and its equity sponsor. The comprehensive transaction delevered the Company’s funded indebtedness by more than $500 million, provided the Company access to $125 million of new money term loan financing, and left trade claims unimpaired.
• Casper Sleep, Inc. — Represented Casper Sleep Inc., global sleep products company, on a comprehensive recapitalization transaction, which involved a transfer of the business to Carpenter Co., the company’s second lien lender and key supplier, and entirely deleveraged the company’s balance sheet.
• FloWorks International, LLC — Represented FloWorks International, LLC, a specialty industrial distributor of pipe, valves and fittings and related technical solutions to energy and industrial sectors, in its successful out-of-court recapitalization transaction supported by Clearlake Capital Group LP, TowerBrook Capital Partners LP, the company’s management team and other stakeholders.
• Represented a private agriculture company in connection with its out-of-court restructuring, including a $200 million convertible preferred equity investment and $100 million unsecured debt investment from a consortium of investors and a concurrent refinancing of its existing first lien credit facility.
• Appgate, Inc. — Represented Appgate, Inc. (APGT) and 11 of its subsidiaries (“Appgate”) in their prepackaged Chapter 11 cases in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Appgate is an industry leader in secure network access, providing an innovative suite of cybersecurity solutions and advisory services to more than 660 leading private enterprises and government agencies around the world. Pursuant to Appgate’s confirmed Chapter 11 plan, Appgate obtained $18 million in additional liquidity, emerged as a private company, and was able to quickly address its unsustainable debt load by entirely deleveraging its balance sheet.
• Accuride Corporation — Representing Accuride Corporation and 15 of its debtor affiliates in their Chapter 11 cases in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Accuride is the one of the largest and most diversified manufacturers and suppliers of wheels and wheel end components in the world. Accuride commenced its Chapter 11 cases with approximately $485.6 million in funded debt and commitments from an ad hoc group of prepetition term loan lenders to provide nearly $103 million in debtor-in-possession financing. Accuride and its term loan lenders have also agreed on the framework of a consensual restructuring transaction which will deleverage the company’s balance sheet via an equitization of the lenders’ prepetition debt.
• Cyxtera Technologies Inc. — Represented Cyxtera Technologies Inc. (CYTX) and its affiliates (“Cyxtera”) in their prearranged Chapter 11 cases in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey. Cyxtera is a Nasdaq-traded global leader in data center colocation and interconnection services, providing an innovative suite of connected and intelligently-automated infrastructure and interconnection solutions to more than 2,300 leading enterprises, service providers and government agencies around the world. Cyxtera filed for Chapter 11 protection in June 2023 with over $1 billion in funded debt obligations and over $1 billion in long-term lease obligations to pursue a sale transaction and/or a recapitalization transaction as contemplated under a Restructuring Support Agreement supported by a supermajority of its existing first lien lenders. Cyxtera also filed with a $200 million committed DIP financing facility provided by certain of its first lien lenders.
• Bed Bath & Beyond, Inc. — Represented Bed Bath & Beyond, Inc. and 73 of its affiliates in their Chapter 11 cases in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey. Bed Bath & Beyond, then the largest home goods retailer in the United States, offered everything from bed linens to cookware to home organization, baby care and more. Through its Chapter 11 case, Bed Bath & Beyond conducted a value maximizing sale transaction for substantially all of its intellectual property assets and an orderly wind down of its business pursuant to a consensual Chapter 11 plan.
• Aearo Technologies LLC — Represented Aearo Technologies LLC and its debtor affiliates in their Chapter 11 cases in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Indiana. Aearo Technologies is a market leader in the energy control space, providing custom noise, vibration, thermal and shock protection solutions to the aerospace, commercial vehicle, heavy equipment and electronics industries. Aearo Technologies and its non-Debtor parent 3M are defendants in the largest multi-district litigation in history, with over 230,000 personal injury claims filed related to certain historical Aearo products. 
• Intelsat S.A. — Represented Intelsat S.A. and its debtor-affiliates—operator of the world’s largest satellite fleet and connectivity infrastructure—in connection with their Chapter 11 cases in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. With approximately $15 billion in liabilities at the time of filing, and posing complex intercompany issues and novel issues of regulatory and foreign law, Intelsat was one of the largest and most complex restructurings of 2020 and 2021. Intelsat filed with $1 billion in committed DIP financing, which it subsequently refinanced and expanded up to $1.5 billion during its Chapter 11 cases. During their Chapter 11 cases, Intelsat purchased Gogo Inc.’s commercial aviation business, including its software platform and network management infrastructure, for approximately $400 million in a relatively unprecedented transaction for a Chapter 11 debtor. After extensive multiparty and cross-silo negotiations and successful mediation efforts, Intelsat obtained confirmation of its plan of reorganization on a fully-consensual basis and emerged from Chapter 11 with nearly $7 billion in new exit financing and a deleveraged capital structure.
• Town Sports International, LLC — Represented Town Sports International, LLC, a subsidiary of Town Sports International Holdings, Inc., and certain of its affiliates in their Chapter 11 cases in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Town Sports is a leading owner and operator of fitness clubs primarily in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States, with brands that include New York Sports Clubs, Boston Sports Clubs, Washington Sports Clubs and Philadelphia Sports Clubs. As of December 31, 2019, Town Sports operated 186 fitness clubs and served approximately 605,000 members. 
• Acosta, Inc. — Represented Acosta, Inc., a multinational full-service sales, marketing and retail merchandising agency with 30,000 employees, serving 1,200 blue chip companies across the globe, in its prepackaged restructuring of $3 billion of indebtedness. Acosta’s Chapter 11 plan was confirmed by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware just 15 days after the bankruptcy filing.
• Blackhawk Mining LLC — Represented Blackhawk Mining LLC and its affiliates in their prepackaged Chapter 11 cases in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Blackhawk is a leading metallurgical coal producer based in Lexington, Kentucky, and has operations primarily in West Virginia and Kentucky. Blackhawk employs more than 2,800 employees. Blackhawk entered Chapter 11 to implement a prepackaged plan of reorganization that will eliminate approximately $650 million of the Company’s nearly $1.1 billion in prepetition funded debt.
• Hollander Sleep Products, LLC — Represented Hollander Sleep Products, LLC and certain of its affiliates, a leading bedding products manufacturer and wholesaler, specializing in pillows, comforters, mattress pads and foam products, in connection with their prearranged Chapter 11 restructuring in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.
• Things Remembered, Inc. — Represented Things Remembered, Inc. and its affiliates, one of the nation’s leading multi-channel personalized apparel and accessory retailers, in their Chapter 11 cases in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. As of its Chapter 11 filing, Things Remembered operated approximately 420 stores and kiosks in the U.S. and Canada. Things Remembered sold its go-forward business to a strategic buyer that preserves its online business, up to 1,400 jobs, and approximately 178 brick-and-mortar stores.
• Toys“R”Us, Inc. — Represented Toys “R” Us, Inc. and several of its direct and indirect subsidiaries in one of the largest ever retail Chapter 11 filings in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Richmond Division. Following implementation of a strategy to effect a successful wind-down of operations in the United States and going concern sales and/or reorganizations of operations throughout the world, including Asia, led efforts to construct and implement global settlement agreements amongst all stakeholders and five distinct Chapter 11 plans.
• Payless ShoeSource, Inc. — Represented Payless ShoeSource Inc. and certain of its affiliates in Chapter 11 cases pending in the United States bankruptcy court for the Eastern District of Missouri. Payless is the largest specialty family footwear retailer in the Western Hemisphere with nearly 4,400 stores across more than 30 countries. Payless is using Chapter 11 to exit unprofitable store locations and implement a pre-arranged restructuring plan supported by 2/3 of its lenders that will reduce its approximately $830 million in funded debt by nearly 50%. Payless has also filed for recognition of the U.S. Chapter 11 proceedings under Part IV of the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
• VER Technologies HoldCo LLC — Represented VER Technologies HoldCo LLC and certain of its affiliates (collectively, “VER”) in Chapter 11 cases in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. VER is one of the largest suppliers of rental production equipment and solutions in the world, leasing lighting, sound, rigging and video equipment to various customers in the corporate, hotel, television, cinema and live music sectors. At the time the cases were filed, VER had funded debt of over $760 million. VER commenced the cases with the support of over two-thirds of the lenders under its prepetition term loan facility, the lenders under its term loan debtor-in-possession financing facility, holders of two tranches of promissory notes, and a strategic merger partner. These parties supported VER’s Chapter 11 cases pursuant to a restructuring support agreement that provided the basis for a consensual Chapter 11 plan followed immediately by a merger of the reorganized equity into the strategic partner. VER also secured $364.7 million in debtor-in-possession financing facilities to fund VER’s operations and the administration of its Chapter 11 cases. In 2019, the Global M&A Network granted VER’s restructuring with the Turnaround of the Year (large mid-markets) Atlas award, and in 2018, the Turnaround Management Association recognized VER with its “Restructuring of the Year” (over $500 million to $1 billion) award.
• Goodman Networks Incorporated — Represented Goodman Networks Incorporated and its domestic subsidiaries in their prepackaged Chapter 11 cases filed in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas. Headquartered in Frisco, Texas, Goodman is a leading provider of field services to the satellite television industry, professional services and network infrastructure to the telecommunications industry, and installation and maintenance services for satellite communications. Goodman employs more than 3,400 individuals across thirty-five offices in the United States, and has more than $325 million of funded debt obligations as of the commencement of their Chapter 11 Cases.
• Seadrill Limited — Represented Seadrill Limited and certain of its direct and indirect subsidiaries in their multi-jurisdictional restructuring of approximately $20 billion of contract and debt obligations. Seadrill is a leading global provider of offshore contract drilling services and employs nearly 4,000 individuals across 22 countries and five continents. Seadrill's pre-arranged Chapter 11 cases, one of the largest filings in 2017 based on asset size, resulted in the re-profiling of approximately $6 billion of secured debt, eliminated approximately $3.5 billion of unsecured bond and contractual obligations, and facilitated a capital investment of more than $1 billion. In the months preceding Chapter 11, Seadrill also consummated a series of ring-fencing transactions that successfully prevented its non-consolidated businesses from also having to commence Chapter 11 cases. Seadrill and its debtor subsidiaries confirmed their Chapter 11 plan with near universal consensus in approximately 7 months and emerged from Chapter 11 in less than 10 months.
• Samson Resources Corporation — Represented Samson Resources Corporation in its Chapter 11 restructuring in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Samson, a leading onshore oil and gas exploration and production company with headquarters in Tulsa, Oklahoma, held oil and gas assets primarily located in Colorado, Louisiana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming. In Chapter 11, Samson successfully executed on six simultaneous asset sales during its restructuring, with an aggregate purchase price of $650 million, and negotiated a global settlement with its major stakeholders, resolving all open issues in its bankruptcy. Samson’s plan of reorganization deleveraged its balance sheet by approximately $4 billion and positioned Samson for future success after emergence.

Representative Creditor, Sponsor and Investor Matters

• Ligado Networks LLC — Representing an ad hoc group of crossholders of more than $4 billion in principal amount of debt and equity in Ligado Networks LLC (“Ligado”), a leading satellite communications company, in Ligado’s prearranged Chapter 11 case filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (the “Bankruptcy Court”). Ligado filed for bankruptcy with a restructuring support agreement (“RSA”) in place that is supported by holders of nearly 90% of the company’s $7.8 billion of aggregate funded indebtedness and a significant portion of its equity. The RSA provides for the conversion of existing debt into new preferred equity, the preservation of the existing interests in the capital structure below the new preferred equity, a commercial agreement with AST SpaceMobile Inc. in respect of spectrum usage rights, and the preservation of Ligado’s $39 billion takings claim against the U.S. government. In addition, the Bankruptcy Court approved a $940 million multi-draw debtor-in-possession credit facility funded in part by the ad hoc group of crossholders that provides Ligado with access to new money financing and will refinance certain of Ligado’s existing debt.
• Quorum Health Corporation — Represented an ad hoc group of noteholders and DIP lenders of Quorum Health Corporation, a provider of hospital and outpatient healthcare services, in connection with Quorum’s prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Quorum filed for Chapter 11 protection to implement a prepackaged plan of reorganization that will eliminate approximately $575 million of Quorum’s nearly $1.4 billion in prepetition funded debt and provide it with at least $200 million, and up to $250 million, of fully committed new equity capital, funded by certain noteholder group members, upon emergence from Chapter 11.

Kirkland & Ellis LLP, Law Clerk

Kirkland & Ellis LLP, Summer Associate