Laura E. Baccash

Counsel, Chicago

Biography

Overview

Laura Baccash is counsel in the Firm's Financial Restructuring and Insolvency practice and is based in the Chicago office.

Laura represents debtors, senior lenders, unsecured creditors, purchasers of assets and other interested parties in complex business reorganizations, out-of-court restructurings and workouts, distressed acquisitions, and a variety of bankruptcy litigation matters. She has considerable experience executing restructuring strategies through pre-packaged, pre-arranged and traditional chapter 11 cases across multiple industries.

Bars and Courts
Illinois State Bar
US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
Education
JD
University of Illinois
BA
Cornell University
Languages
English

Experience

Selected public engagements include:

Boy Scouts of America – Representation of the Boy Scouts of America in its chapter 11 restructuring in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. The Boy Scouts of America is one of the largest youth organizations in the United States and one of the largest Scouting organizations in the world, with approximately 2.2 million registered youth participants and approximately 800,000 adult volunteers.

Lang Holdings Inc. – Representation of private equity client, as provider of DIP financing and stalking-horse purchaser of substantially all assets of Lang Holdings, a leading supplier of art and design driven calendars, back-to-school products, greeting cards, stationary, and specialty products.*

YRC Worldwide, Inc. – Representation of YRC Worldwide, Inc., one of the country's largest LTL transportation businesses, with operations in US, Canada, Mexico and China, in a comprehensive out-of-court restructuring. The deal refinanced more than $1 billion in secured indebtedness, converted deferred fees and interest under YRC's senior credit facility into equity, provided for a $100 million new-money investment into YRC and extended the maturity of YRC's refinanced debt obligations and its deferred pension obligations.*

Hines Horticulture – Representation of Hines Horticulture, one of the largest commercial nursery operators in North America. Successfully negotiated a going-concern sale transaction.*

Pliant Corporation – Representation of Pliant Corporation and its affiliated debtors in their 2006 and 2009 chapter 11 proceedings, involving in excess of $1.2 billion and $1.0 billion of indebtedness, respectively. Pliant was among North America's leading manufacturers of value-added films and flexible packaging for food, personal care, medical, agricultural and industrial applications.*

Federal-Mogul Corporation – Representation of Federal-Mogul Corporation and its affiliated debtors in their chapter 11 proceedings, involving funded debt in excess of $4 billion, asbestos liabilities estimated in excess of $9 billion and U.K. pension liabilities estimated by U.K. pension authorities to be in excess of $2 billion. Federal-Mogul is a publicly traded corporation that manufactures vehicle parts for OEMs and after-market customers in the automotive, small engine, heavy-duty and industrial markets throughout the world.*

Pegasus Satellite Television, Inc. – Representation of Pegasus Satellite Television, Inc. and its affiliated debtors in their chapter 11 proceedings. Pegasus was the largest independent distributor of DIRECTV services and ultimately sold its direct satellite business to DIRECTV during the chapter 11 cases in a section 363 sale.*

 

*Experience prior to joining White & Case.