Honored for their work as leaders of the AlixPartners teams at these companies were managing directors Lisa Donahue, who served as interim chief financial officer at Calpine, the Houston-based energy giant; Ted Stenger and Ken Hiltz, who served as chief restructuring officer and CFO, respectively, at the international auto supplier Dana; David Garfield, who led the turnaround team at Chicago-based Solo Cup, a major supplier to McDonald’s and Starbucks; and Alan Holtz, who acted as financial advisor at Remy, the Indianapolis-based auto parts-maker. The Calpine work won the “Mega Company Turnaround Award;” for Dana, it was the “International Company Turnaround Award”; at Solo Cup, the “Large Company Turnaround Award”; and Remy, the “Transaction of the Year Award.” This marks the 17th year of such awards from the TMA, and the first time there have been four winners from the same firm such as AlixPartners in the same year.

“AlixPartners’ very reason for being is to help great companies that have fallen on hard times or that face urgent challenges of some other kind—to come to their aid when it really matters,” said Fred Crawford, the firm’s CEO, “and these four awards are an important recognition of how seriously we take that commitment. It’s very gratifying to receive them and, on behalf of everyone at AlixPartners, I thank the TMA and heartily congratulate each of these four teams and their leaders. All of us at AlixPartners also heartily congratulate the attorneys, investment bankers and other advisors who, along with the individual companies’ management teams, contributed so much value to these turnarounds.”

Below are some of the highlights of each engagement:

Calpine

• Overall case called “a poster child for a successful reorganization” by federal bankruptcy judge Burton Lifland. AlixPartners redesigned and managed much of the company’s accounting and cash-management functions, which consisted of more than 500 separate bank accounts, and built a comprehensive cash-management tool that was instrumental in keeping the company afloat until Calpine’s debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing was put in place.
• AlixPartners also led the bankruptcy claims-management process, involving accounting and substantive consolidation analysis for more than 200 debtors, 400 company subsidiaries and more than 18,000 claims. As a result of the company’s turnaround, over $8 billion of unsecured claims were converted into equity.
• Despite deteriorating credit markets, Calpine emerged from its reorganization to close a $7 billion exit-financing package with extremely favorable terms, with AlixPartners managing the distribution of over 80%, or 400 million shares, of stock in an initial stock distribution as well as funding over $4 billion of cash claims.
• All of Calpine’s secured debt-holders wound up being paid in cash, with interest, and unsecured creditors are expected ultimately to receive recoveries near 99%.
• Also recognized by the TMA for his work at Calpine was Samuel M. Greene, lead banker, Miller Buckfire & Co., LLC.

• One of the first large corporate bankruptcies filed under the reformed bankruptcy law, and included ground-breaking settlement agreements with two powerful unions, the United Auto Workers and the United Steel Workers and, while other auto suppliers have languished in bankruptcy, Dana emerged from Ch. 11 in just 23 months.
• Core restructuring initiatives are estimated to yield more than $440 million in annual cost savings and revenue improvements, including $180 million in annual pricing improvements; non-union employee wage and benefit reductions of $70 million; $90 million in improvements from the elimination of U.S. post-retirement healthcare obligations through the establishment of a voluntary employee beneficiary association, or VEBA (one of four established at the company); manufacturing-footprint optimization actions targeted to be more than $60 million; and $50 million saving in overhead costs.
• Dana's final plan of reorganization provided for full payment of administrative and priority claims, full payment of its DIP financing facility and satisfaction of general unsecured claims with common stock of the new Dana Holding Corp., and it estimated recovery percentages for general unsecured claims to be between 69% and 90%.
• Despite difficult credit conditions, Dana obtained over $2 billion in exit financing in late 2007, and attracted an “all-star” board of directors, including former General Motors CFO John Devine, former Chrysler CFO Jerry York, former Toyota executive vice president Gary Convis and Richard Gephardt, the well-known former U.S. congressman from Missouri.
• Also recognized by the TMA for their work at Dana were Corinne Ball, lead counsel, Jones Day; and Henry S. Miller, leader investment banker, Miller Buckfire & Co.

• A comprehensive, operational turnaround of a $2.3 billion company not in Ch. 11, including a focus on organizational restructuring, manufacturing footprint optimization, plant productivity improvement, inventory reduction, customer and product portfolio rationalization, pricing, cash management, logistics, and sourcing.
• AlixPartners worked with Solo Cup executives and Vestar Capital Partners LP, which holds the majority of board seats at the company, to help the company achieve $80 million in EBITDA improvements, $35 million in inventory improvements and $450 million in debt reduction, as the company’s gross profit margin from continuing operations improved by 23% in just one year, to 11.7%.
• Solo Cup’s CEO Bob Korzenski (on an earnings call): “AlixPartners and Solo, working together, have done a magnificent job in 2007.”
• Vestar Capital Partners’ founder and CEO Dan O’Connell (in a recent “Buyouts” article): “During the nine months of AlixPartners retainer, EBITDA rose from $110 million to $190 million.”

• The first pre-packaged (“pre-pak”) bankruptcy in automotive history—extremely difficult to accomplish in such a depressed, cash-intensive industry. AlixPartners retained as “restructuring advisor” (as opposed to interim manager), a growing segment in the restructuring field.
• AlixPartners was tasked with ensuring that Remy didn’t run out of cash before its consensual, but highly complex (a complicated, multi-layered capital structure; a lender covenant limiting the use of cash from asset sales; etc.), pre-pak could come to fruition—and thus avoid a “free-fall” bankruptcy.
• AlixPartners developed a comprehensive 13-week cash-flow forecasting process, led negotiations with suppliers to increase liquidity by $18 million and along with Remy negotiated with Remy’s largest customer, General Motors Corp., a new long-term supply agreement that gave Remy important breathing room.
• As a result, when Remy finally filed its pre-pak bankruptcy, it was met with almost unanimous support of its unsecured creditors and, upon emergence from Ch. 11—just 59 days later—it was able to convert $315 million in pre-petition debt into equity, significantly improving its capital structure.
• Also recognized by the TMA for their work at Remy were Michael H. Torkin, debtor’s counsel, Shearman & Sterling LLP; and Stephen Ledoux, lead banker, Rothschild Inc.
• Remy CEO John Weber: "AlixPartners, Rothschild and Shearman & Sterling did a terrific job in helping Remy to successfully reorganize. Their assistance was key to getting the deal done. They were a particularly effective team as they sought practical solutions to move the deal to completion and fully integrated their members into the Remy team in a way that ensured the initatives would live beyond the restructure."

About AlixPartners
AlixPartners is a leading global business advisory firm offering services across four main disciplines: operational performance improvement, financial restructuring and bankruptcy reorganization, litigation consulting and financial advisory services. The firm's expertise is in helping clients anticipate, evaluate and successfully resolve urgent, high-impact business challenges in an increasingly complex legal, regulatory and economic landscape. Drawing on the experience of more than 700 employees from 13 offices across North America, Europe and Asia, the firm commits small teams of seasoned professionals to deliver results when it really matters. For more information, visit www.alixpartners.com.