Experience

Marcel Windt has been appointed restructuring expert (herstructureringsdeskundige) by a Dutch court in undisclosed Dutch Scheme (WHOA) proceedings involving of a group of companies aiming to restructure over € 30 million of debt.

Richard le Grand has been appointed as monitor of Vendo Nederland B.V. by the Rotterdam court and has subsequently been appointed as restructuring expert. As monitor he has supervised the public Dutch scheme proceedings and as restructuring expert he is authorised to offer a scheme of composition (restructuring plan) to creditors and to request that the court sanctions the scheme.

We have acted for a PE portfolio company on the restructuring of a lease resulting in a reoccurring sub-lease vacancy risk reduction and reoccurring cost reduction against financial support of the sponsor and bank. The Dutch Scheme (WHOA) was leveraged to reach a consensual deal.

We have acted for Tennor Holding B.V. in the appeal proceedings against its bankruptcy. Tennor has paid all operational creditors and has agreed ‘standstill’ arrangements with all its financial creditors. The Court of Appeal in Amsterdam accepted Tennor Holding B.V.’s argument that herewith the ‘insolvency situation’ was resolved and the bankruptcy was annulled on that basis.

Appointed as liquidator (vereffenaar) of IHC B.V., former owner of Royal IHC,  a world leading shipbuilder, Creating the maritime future - Royal IHC

Appointed chairman of SRF, a Dutch Foundation that will distribute the most part of the EUR 1.4 billion  Global Settlement as concluded between Steinhoff and a group of over 30.000 qualifying shareholders. See: Steinhoff Global Settlement (steinhoffsettlement.com)

We have advised Tennor Holding B.V., on its agreement with certain of its material creditors to restructure financial indebtedness of the Tennor Group and certain affiliated entities. The restructuring will include the issuance of EUR 1,450,000,000 First Super Senior Secured Notes by Tennor Holding B.V. and, subject to conditions, the transfer of certain existing equity securities of the Tennor Group which are currently held by creditors and the cancellation, subject to conditions, of existing bonds of the Tennor Group and certain of its affiliates which are currently held by creditors. For more information see: https://tennor.com/tennor-group-agrees-to-restructuring-of-financial-indebtedness-with-material-creditors/

Acting as bankruptcy trustee of Verolme Holding B.V. and its subsidiaries, the industrial heritage of the world leading shipbuilder as established by legendary enterpreneur Cornelis Verolme. For some publicity about the new start of the activities see: Verolme Moerdijk weer op de been na faillissement

Acting for a provider of horticulture technology on its financial restructuring, including an amendment of its Senior Facilities Agreement with one of the leading Dutch banks and the structuring of a Subordinated Loan.

Acting for the management participation vehicle in the restructuring of IHC Merwede Holding, one of the largest Dutch shipbuilders, whereby the shares in IHC were acquired by a consortium of strategic parties and investors, supported by the Dutch State. Our instruction commenced early 2019 when we advised the management participation vehicle on the EUR 1.6 billion refinancing of IHC Merwede Holding.

Acting for Mercon, a service provider for tank and industrial support in maintenance and constructing projects in optimizing its capital structure.

Acting for Quick Parking Holding, a Dutch parking multinational, in its refinancing.

Assisting Fitland Group in stakeholder management after the divestment of its hotel and fitness facilities to Fletcher Group and Basic-Fit.

Assisting Roto Smeets Group, part of a group with a EUR 1 billion turnover and one of the largest Dutch print businesses, in its restructuring and subsequent bankruptcy liquidation.

Assisting the municipality of Enschede in helping Dutch premier league football club FC Twente with its successful bid to survive a period of prolonged financial distress.

Appointed to effect the administration (and ultimate closure) of the Europe Islamic University of Applied Sciences, a politically sensitive case conducted in full public view.

Finalising the liquidation of the last Dutch Enron entities, following arguably the highest profile collapse in recent history, a mandate in which we were involved since 2004.

Appointed as the administrator of Eye Media, a group of television production companies making programmes for some of the main broadcasting channels, including the popular RTL4.

Acted for Rabobank on the collection of a receivable, pledged in its favour. In court proceedings in respect of the collection of the receivable, an objection to jurisdiction of the District Court of Amsterdam was filed on the basis that a pledgee should not be allowed to rely on a choice of forum in the underlying agreement between the pledgor and its counterparty. On behalf of Rabobank, we successfully opposed the objection both in the first instance and on appeal.

Representation of a private equity investor in a dispute with the bankruptcy trustee of De Combi Groep about the legality of dividend distributions and the annual accounts. The judgment is published here (ECLI:NL:RBROT:2020:4400), and confirmed in appeal.

Acted as legal counsel for a Japanese listed company (net sales of approx. €1.9 billion) in order to avoid the requested reopening of the liquidation process of one of its Dutch subsidiaries.

Acted for ECR - European Care Residences and Resorts with over 500 employees - on the restructuring and integration of its care and hospitality facilities into Blueprint Group.

Assisted Dutch retail chain Men at Work in the run-off and divestment of its (60) stores, HQ, stock and brands.

Defended Baars Beheer, an industrial and offshore company, based in Sliedrecht, active in construction, lease and sale of container pontoons and Split Hopper barges. Dispute conducted before the Enterprise Chamber. All charges were refuted and the company’s counter petition to intervene in the supervisory board was accepted.

Assisted AMST, an the Austrian family-owned soft- and hardware development company for the aviation industry, to acquire the then insolvent Simteq simulator, software and technology business  for both Boeing 737 and Airbus A320.

Acted initially as receiver and subsequently as a Court appointed bankruptcy Trustee in the wind-down of Pyroban Benelux B.V., the Dutch arm of a former Caterpillar business line specialising in explosion protection engine kits, components to engine OEMs and packagers in the oilfield markets. 

Assisted Varova Fashion Group now known as Brand Retail Group (110 stores, 1500 people employed, €140m revenue p/a) and Standard Investment (as a shareholder) in negotiating an Amendment and Restatement relating to a Loan Facility Agreement with senior credit provider HIG WhiteHorse. Varova now focuses on its most successful brands Sissy Boy, Open 32 and Tumble ’n Dry. For news click here.

Represented the CRO before the Enterprise Chamber in a corporate dispute over the restructuring of VADA, a metal recycling business. All charges were refuted. For the Court decision click here.

Advised the Profireal Group SE board on certain accounting matters. Profireal Group is a multinational company providing credit and financing services in Central and Eastern Europe with consolidated assets of approximately €400m.

Advised the Flextra Group shareholders on the group’s restructuring and subsequent buy-out. Flextra is a temporary employment agency in the construction sector with approximately 1500 employees.

Acted for management and owners of Verkerk Groep (technical installations) in minimising business interruption by selling the business to the French multinational Vinci Energies.

Acted for (approx.) €120m turnover passenger transport organisation regarding its bank and the winding up of an unfortunate foreign investment.

Assisted the management of education administrative support company Vizyr now known as ONS (serving 400 schools and 8000 teachers/educational employees) to attempt to resolve  a commercial contract cancellation with its main customer.

Assisted in the restructuring and refinancing of a heavy lifting and heavy shipping business.

Acted as co-counsel for a former owner/director of one of the largest Dutch flight training schools in defending his interests against the administrators of the training school in a successful business mediation.

Acted as a legal counsel advising various municipalities with a professional football club within their municipal territory on state aid aspects when the municipality is involved with buying, selling, restructuring and building a stadium. The area of state aid often goes with other practice areas, such as restructuring, insolvency and corporate law.

Acted as the court appointed bankruptcy trustee for the Dutch arm of Fontijne Grotnes group, one of the world’s leading innovative equipment manufacturers and headquartered in Vlaardingen. Fontijne has facilities in Vlaardingen, The Netherlands and in Niles, Michigan, USA, in addition to regional sales and service offices in China, Korea, Japan, India and Russia.

Advised on group restructuring and subsequent equity participation in a shipyard.

Acted for a family-owned retail chain in relation to participation in the company by a private-equity-owned foreign strategic investor.

Acted as Dutch counsel for (several parts of) a financial institution holding substantial amounts of fixed rate bearer notes issued by PTIF BV and guaranteed by Oi S.A. under their € 7,500,000,000.00 Medium-Term Note Programme.

Assisted management in both turnaround and balance sheet restructuring of Cleanlease - annual turnover €130m - a group of companies active in leasing and laundering of linens and clothing. The assignment encompassed protection of secured refinancing against an injunction before the Enterprise Division of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal; for the decision click here.

Successfully advised the municipality of Eindhoven on state aid procedure (article 108(2) TFEU) in respect of the sale-and-lease-back transaction between the municipality and the professional football club PSV. On 4 July 2016, the Commission decided that the measure of the municipality in favour of PSV did not constitute state aid in the meaning of 107(1) TFEU (PbEU 19.10.2016, L282/75).

Acted as court-appointed director of the Centre for the development of logistics and transport in Europe (CETLE), a foundation involved in EU-supported transport related projects.

Acted as bankruptcy trustee of the MS Megan-C, a €20m, 9,530 tonne (DWT) multipurpose vessel, built in 2011 and registered on the Isle of Man.

Acted for Coface and Glencore Grain in relation to (the bankruptcy of) Abengoa Bioenergy Netherlands B.V., a large bio-ethanol producer. Part of the Abengoa Group, a Spanish multinational corporation, it holds companies within the energy, telecommunications, transportation and environment sectors, with 13,341 employees and showing €330m turnover as of March 2019. 
 

Acted for the municipality of Enschede in the rescue of premier division  FC Twente and for the municipality of Venlo in the refinancing of second division football club VVV Venlo.

Acted as counsel to Great American in its tender for the winding-up of V&D and Macintosh.

Acted as bankruptcy trustee of VLM Nederland B.V., a flight crew entity employing 75 people.

Acted as defence counsel to one of the non-executive board members in the D&O settlement with the trustee of the listed and bankrupted small-cap Innoconcepts.

Acted as one of the bankruptcy trustees over Rijnmond Energy, an 820 megawatt and €0.5 billion, base load power plant in the Rotterdam area.

Acted for a general hospital (annual turnover €300m) in the structuring to optimise its private initiatives, both from a tax and a governance perspective.

Acted on behalf of De Viersprong, a highly specialised mental healthcare institute (GGZ) employing over 300 people, in its successful standstill and turnaround negotiations with its financiers, institutional creditors, the WFZ (healthcare guarantee sector fund) and the relevant healthcare insurers.

Acted for Great American in the successful bid for the bankrupted Schoenenreus business.

Acted for Alteri in the bidding process for bankrupted retailer Mexx.

Acted as envisaged bankruptcy trustee/prepack administrator for healthcare institute STMG (3000 people employed), contributing to its entirely solvent liquidation and divestment process within a four months’ timeframe.

Appointed on an annual basis as trustee of OW Bunker and OW Global Trading, two OW Bunker subsidiaries with an annual turnover of €1.5 billion. OW Bunker is one of the world's biggest players in oil bunkering.

Acted for the lessor and owners of bankrupted Nedstaal, one of the world’s leading production facilities of steel and ball bearings for the automotive manufacturing industry.

Acted for an educational institute to address fundamental strategic issues.

Acted as silent trustee over a financially regulated company active in the leisure industry to oversee its refinancing for the foreseeable future.

Advised an ad hoc committee of bondholders on Dutch law aspects of an international restructuring.

Engaged to assist a parental initiative in successfully restarting a failed yet unique day care centre, being the oldest one in Rotterdam.

Acted on a pro bono basis to help an employees' initiative to restart iconic Rotterdam bookstore 'Donner'.

Acted as trustees in the bankruptcy of KPNQwest N.V., a top 25 AEX listed telecommunication company with a €2.2 billion deficit, in a lawsuit against its parent, joint venture partners Qwest Communications and KPN and certain executive and non-executive directors. After years of litigation on both sides of the Atlantic, the matter was settled for €260m, possibly the largest D&O liability settlement on Dutch territory to date.

Acted in a bond restructuring for the management of a Dutch holding company of a power electronics and PV inverter manufacturer.

Acting as co-trustee in the restart of lingerie brand Marlies Dekkers.

Acted for a privately owned outplacement and re-employment company on loan term negotiations with its lenders.

Advised a global player in the oil and chemical services industry, successfully steering the company clear of insolvency.

Advised the shareholders of a biogas plant on the various restructuring options for the company.

Assisted High Speed Alliance and Dutch National Railways to reach a temporary replacement for the Fyra line to Brussels.

Assisted Allianz in reaching a settlement in international (Canadian) litigation involving a Dutch insolvent insured party.

Advised NedCar in its successful rescue through a deal with BMW and VDL.

Advised TBI Holdings on supply issues caused by the insolvency of a subcontractor to one of its business units.

Acted for the Dutch part of the US Chapter 11 restructuring of ATP Oil & Gas, a Houston-based developer of oil and natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea.

Acted as lead counsel for TBI Holdings, a major Dutch construction company, in the successful acquisition of mid-size bankrupted building company Groothuis.

Acted for the Pink & Nelson management in the successful governance stabilisation of its business.

Acted for Dutch National Railways in the restructuring of the HSL-Zuid (high speed) activities.

Acted as counsel to a listed Dutch multinational, active in the field of nutritional supplements, to assure continuity in the services of one of its key suppliers.

Acted as bankruptcy trustee in the liquidation of Atta Makelaardij, historically one of the larger, regional real estate agents.

Acted for Pan-Invest as the management of the Dutch holdco in the restructuring of a large Romanian Real Estate Fund.

Acted for the management of the Dutch finance company of Q-Cells in the restructuring (and sale) of the German solar energy equipment producer Q-Cells SE, a company with, at the time, an annual turnover of €1 billion and employing 2,000 people.

Acted as Dutch counsel to the REIT’s facility agent holding parts of the Karstadt Quelle real estate portfolio.

Acted for Gemeente Amsterdam to resolve issues for Stedelijk Museum following the bankruptcy of building company Midreth.

Acted as liquidator in the solvent liquidation of one of the largest Spanish co-operative firm’s holding companies.