The charitable nonprofit form creates unique issues of corporate governance. Officers and directors owe fiduciary duties to their charitable institutions, and insolvency or reorganization complicates issues, particularly with regard to the handling of endowment funds. Donors can specify how gifts...
“The most useful and influential people in America are those who take the deepest interest in institutions that exist for the purpose of making the world better.” What Booker T. Washington recognized in 1901 holds true today. More than 25 percent of adults volunteer with nonprofit organizations,...
Disposing of assets of a nonprofit corporation, whether tax-exempt or taxable—or liquidating or dissolving such an entity—can be wrought with traps for those unfamiliar with the additional legal regimes and other considerations that overlay nonprofit organizations. Unlike their for-profit brethren...
In 2015, Sears sold a portion of its real estate holdings to Seritage (SRG), a newly formed real estate investment trust (REIT) owned by existing Sears shareholders, in a $2.7 billion sale-leaseback transaction. The real estate holdings consisted of existing Sears retail locations, and as part of...
Amazon’s announced acquisition of Whole Foods for $13.7 billion 1 is yet another sign of continuing competitive challenges faced by traditional supermarket chains. The Whole Foods acquisition brings Amazon a 468-store footprint, a fresh foods supply chain, new sourcing capabilities, and a strong...
It’s not news that traditional retail has been undergoing a sea change for quite some time, as evidenced by the growing number of big names that have been forced to downsize or close altogether in the past few years. Rue21 and Payless Shoe Store have each closed 400 stores so far this year...
Bankruptcy filings by retailers in the first half of 2017 were on a record-setting pace, with 15 Chapter 11 filings in just the first six months of the year ( Figure 1 ). This exceeds the number of retailers that have filed for bankruptcy in any full year since 2009, and there is a significant...
Beginning in the second half of 2016, the Canadian mining sector started to crawl out of the prolonged downturn that started in 2011, when commodity prices peaked and started a long, slow decline. That decline prompted many in the turnaround and restructuring sector to plan for a lot of work in the...
The Chapter 11 filing of SunEdison Inc. on April 21, 2016, marked the end of an extremely wild ride for shareholders of the world’s largest renewable-energy development company. Considered both a hedge fund and retail investor darling at its peak, SunEdison enjoyed a more than 2,100 percent...
Distressed cycles often test the limits of “market” terms and documentation principles prevalent in industry-specific financing arrangements. For independent oil and gas exploration and production (E&P) companies, the industry turmoil that peaked in 2015-2016 put the fundamentals of reserve-...
