Akin Advises Ad Hoc Noteholder Committee on Weatherford Financial Restructuring

(New York) - Akin Gump represented an informal committee of unaffiliated holders (Ad Hoc Noteholder Committee) in relation to the restructuring of Weatherford's $7.4 billion senior unsecured notes and approximately $1 billion of funded bank debt. Weatherford was restructured in 2019 via parallel proceedings in the US (Chapter 11), Bermuda (provisional liquidation and scheme of arrangement) and Ireland (examinership and scheme of arrangement). The restructuring delivered a huge de-leveraging for Weatherford, by a debt-for-equity swap.

This is the first known major restructuring to involve a Chapter 11 with parallel schemes of arrangement in two other jurisdictions, with each court procedure being used to implement the same restructuring.

Akin Gump advised the Ad Hoc Noteholder Committee throughout the process, negotiating and facilitating discussions with Weatherford and other counterparties in connection with the Restructuring Support Agreement (RSA), the Chapter 11 plan of reorganisation, the debtor-in-possession financing, the exit financing and the new corporate governance documents, as well as the Irish and Bermuda proceedings.

Following the confirmation of the Chapter 11 plan of reorganisation, and the approval of the Bermuda and Irish schemes, Weatherford successfully closed the restructuring in each of the U.S., Bermuda and Irish processes simultaneously on 13 December 2019.

The Akin Gump team advising the Ad Hoc Noteholder Committee was led by financial restructuring partners Michael Stamer in New York and James Terry in London with financial restructuring partners Meredith Lahaie, Abid Qureshi and Stephen Kuhn in New York, finance partner Frederick Lee and disputes partner Marty Brimmage in Dallas, ERISA partner Rolf Zaiss in New York, tax partner Howard Jacobson in Washington DC, corporate senior counsels Daniel Zimmerman in New York and Erica McGrady in Washington DC, financial restructuring counsel Kate Doorley in Washington DC and Gary Ritacco in New York and Jon Webb in London and corporate associate Litian Chen in Houston.

Akin Gump worked closely with Arthur Cox (Irish counsel) and MJM Limited (Bermuda counsel) to co-ordinate the implementation of this restructuring in the three independent but inter-conditional in-court processes.

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP is a leading international law firm with more than 1,000 lawyers and advisors in offices throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

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