Rick Allendorf is the head of the Real Estate Finance practice group and a partner in the Real Estate practice of Paul Hastings and is based in the firm’s New York office. Mr. Allendorf’s practice is concentrated in real estate lending with a national scope, with a particular emphasis on complex debt finance. He represents institutional lenders, alternative lenders, debt funds, and construction lenders in all aspects of real estate finance and restructurings.

Mr. Allendorf’s experience includes representing lenders in originating loans intended for balance sheet, syndication, and securitization secured by commercial real estate projects of all asset types, including office, retail, hotel, multifamily, and industrial. He has extensive experience in structuring multi-stack deals with multiple layers of subordinate financing, representing both senior lenders and mezzanine lenders.

Additionally, Mr. Allendorf has extensive experience in workouts and bankruptcies, having been involved in some of the largest restructurings in multiple real estate cycles.

Benjamin Beller is a special counsel in Sullivan & Cromwell’s General Practice Group who focuses on bankruptcy and restructuring. Ben’s recent matters include debtor representations of FTX Trading and its affiliates and Garrett Motion and its affiliates in their chapter 11 cases, and creditor representations in the chapter 11 cases of Mallinckrodt plc and its affiliates, Avaya Inc. and its affiliates, Lannett Company, Inc. and its affiliates, and SiO2 Medical Products, Inc. and its affiliates.

Ben was named in The Best Lawyers in America 2023 list of “Ones to Watch for Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights / Insolvency and Reorganization Law” and was one of twelve attorneys recognized in Turnarounds & Workouts’ “Outstanding Young Restructuring Lawyers 2023” list. Ben previously clerked for the Honorable Robert E. Gerber and the Honorable Shelley C. Chapman of the US Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York.

Jordan Bryk is a Managing Director at Marathon Asset Management helping to lead the firm’s Capital Solutions platform. Mr. Bryk focuses on originating, structuring and underwriting bespoke private credit transactions and special situations investment opportunities. Mr. Bryk joined Marathon from Centerview Partners where he was a Principal in the Debt Advisory & Restructuring group. Prior to Centerview, Mr. Bryk was a restructuring attorney at Weil Gotshal. At both Centerview and Weil Gotshal, Mr. Bryk represented debtors, creditors and sponsors in all aspects of recapitalization transactions. Mr. Bryk received a JD/MBA from Columbia Law School and Columbia Business School in 2011 and a B.A. degree from Columbia College (cum laude) in 2007.

Mark E. Chesen is a founding partner and Managing Director of SSG Capital Advisors. Mark is a prominent leader in the restructuring industry with over 35 years of experience advising businesses facing operational or financial challenges including bankruptcy proceedings. He has completed over 200 investment banking transactions involving the sale, private placement or financial restructuring of middle market companies in North America and Europe. Prior to founding SSG, he held senior leadership positions including co-head of the investment banking group, head of the Special Situations Group and member of the management committee at Berwind Financial.

Past clients include publicly traded, privately held, private equity sponsored and family-owned companies across diverse industries. Mark is a respected speaker and expert on financial restructuring topics. He has conducted over 50 presentations and authored numerous articles on special situation mergers and acquisitions, capital raises, valuations, and financial restructurings.

Mark is a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization, the American Bankruptcy Institute, the Association for Corporate Growth, and the Turnaround Management Association.

Education:

• University of Texas in Austin, B.S.

Jamie Edmonson is a member of the Bankruptcy + Reorganizations Group. She is resident in the firm’s Wilmington, Delaware office. She also spends significant time in the firm’s Los Angeles office. Jamie has more than two decades of experience representing public and non-public debtor corporations, secured and unsecured creditors, official committees, trustees and asset purchasers in bankruptcy and restructuring matters. Her practice is focused on guiding clients through commercial bankruptcy cases, restructurings, creditors’ rights issues, insolvencies, and liquidations, in which she represents a wide range of clients, including debtors, creditor and equity statutory committees, lenders, asset purchasers, landlords, and lessees. In addition to her bankruptcy work, Jamie’s versatile skill set also includes finance, real estate, energy and corporate law.

Jamie regularly serves as Delaware and lead counsel in large Chapter 11 filings and has extensive experience in all aspects of the Chapter 11 restructuring process involving many industries, which include the information technology, retail, food, energy, construction, real estate, telecommunications and manufacturing sectors.

Jamie was elected to the 2017 Global Network of Women Committee for the Turnaround Management Association (TMA). Her pro bono work includes serving as a judge for the National Appellate Advocacy Competition (NAAC) for the American Bar Association and joining efforts with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights to serve as a nonpartisan poll monitor on Election Day 2018 and 2020.

Before joining Robinson+Cole, Jamie was the managing partner of the Wilmington office for an AmLaw 100 firm. She also utilized her finance background as a Managing Director with a nationally renowned financial advisory firm for several years.

Mr. Gordon is a Managing Director and a member of Houlihan Lokey’s Real Estate, Lodging & Leisure Group. He has been involved in the execution of $20 billion dollars of public and private real estate advisory assignments, including the privatization of REITS, asset and portfolio sales, joint ventures, restructuring and note sales, and corporate real estate monetization transactions, including sale-leasebacks. Mr. Gordon was responsible for the sale of over 15 million square feet of buildings for J.P. Morgan and participated in the restructuring of General Growth Properties and the NY Times Building. He is based in the firm’s New York office.

Before joining Houlihan Lokey, Mr. Gordon had a 25-year career at JPMorgan Chase, where he was a Managing Director in the Real Estate, Lodging & Leisure Group. While there, his notable advising assignments included the sale of a joint venture interest in Roseland Properties, the sale of NewsCorp’s 23-acre mixed-use development site in Boston’s financial district, and the sales of 650 Madison Avenue, 75 Wall Street, 522 Fifth Avenue, and Tiffany’s headquarters. Mr. Gordon advised on the privatization of Urban Properties, First Washington Realty Trust, and Lexford for EQR. He served as advisor to the Port Authority of New York on strategic options for the World Trade Center and has worked on transactions in Latin America, Europe, and New Zealand.

Mr. Gordon holds a B.A. in Economics from the State University of New York at Binghamton and an M.S. in Urban Planning from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is a member of the Urban Land Institute and the International Council of Shopping Centers and holds the MAI and Counselors of Real Estate (CRE) designations.

As Co-President of A&G Real Estate Partners, Andy Graiser brings nearly 30 years of experience as a go-to resource for a variety of real estate services on behalf of healthy and distressed entities. His key areas of expertise include lease mitigation, real estate dispositions, facilitating growth opportunities, valuations, and acquisitions.

He co-founded A&G in 2012 with Co-President Emilio Amendola. Previously, in 1992, they founded and then later sold DJM Realty.

Mr. Graiser and his team have achieved rent-reduction and occupancy-cost savings approaching $8 billion on behalf of 650+ clients in every real estate sector, while selling more than $12 billion of non-core properties and leases. The clients he is most closely associated with include Mattress Firm, Claire’s, RadioShack, rue21, Dowling College, A&P Supermarkets, Party City, Christmas Tree Shops, Tailored Brands, Chico’s, Ruth’s Chris, GNC, and Tuesday Morning.

Terrence Grossman is a Partner at AlixPartners, and focuses on leading retailers through financial and operational restructurings, store portfolio transformations and capital raises. Clients include JC Penney, Party City, Children’s Place and GMAC Mortgage.

He also has extensive corporate retail experience, having served in senior financial leadership positions at CVS Corporation, CVS Realty, Linens ‘n Things, and Tommy Hilfiger.

Terrence has an MBA in finance from Seton Hall University and served 12 years as a Field Artillery officer in the US Army.

Richard S. Klein serves as Senior Managing Director in HCF’s New York Office. Rich is helping further expand the range and experience of HCF’s Special Situation and Restructuring Investment Banking services.

With nearly 27 years of investment banking experience Rich has advised boards of directors, official and ad hoc creditors’ committees, private equity sponsors, and various creditor constituencies on a wide array of restructurings, including Chapter 11 plans of reorganization, out-of-court restructurings, section 363 asset sales, rescue financings, and exchange offerings involving more than $75 billion of restructured liabilities. His industry experience spans aerospace and defense, consumer and retail, gaming, health care, industrials, restaurants, and technology.

Rich has represented creditors in some of the largest and most complicated restructurings including Adelphia Communications, Breitburn Energy, Caesars Entertainment Operating Company, Dean Foods, Frontier Communications, Gateway Casinos, GNC Holdings, Legacy Reserves, Overseas Shipholding Group, Patriot Coal, Sable Permian, and Seadrill. His notable company representations include Acis Capital Management, Agera Energy, Cobre del Mayo, Classic Party Rentals, Corner Bakery, LDK Solar Company, OnCure, Techniplas, TIMCO Aviation, and Vertellus Specialty Chemicals.

Before joining HCF, Rich held senior positions in the restructuring and special situations investment banking practices of Raymond James, Miller Buckfire, and Jefferies.

Kathleen Lauster, CFA, is a Senior Managing Director at Ankura Capital Advisors LLC, based in New York. Kathleen guides clients in capital raising, M&A strategy and financial restructuring. Her focus is on sectors such as Industrials, Business Services, Consumer Products, Secondary Sales, Real Estate and other hard assets, along with restructuring and special situations. She leverages her deep financial background and extensive industry relationships to create accelerated access to investment capital ad perform value-added capital advisory.

Kathleen has over 20 years of global financial services and commercial real estate experience, working for and advising firms in Europe and the US. Her clients have ranged from early-stage ventures to Fortune 500 firms. Most recently, Kathleen was a Managing Director at Fairfield Capital Advisors, where she was the head of the Capital Advisory & Restructuring practice. Prior to joining Fairfield, Kathleen held roles at Silver Leaf Partners, LLC as the Managing Director of Restructuring and Corporate Finance, as well as at a global investment banking and restructuring firm as a Senior Vice President in New York and London. Prior to her time in investment banking, she spent several years at Procter & Gamble. Kathleen began her career in Detroit, advising and lending to automotive suppliers.

Samuel R. Maizel is a partner in Dentons US LLP’s Los Angeles office. Sam’s practice focuses on restructuring, insolvency and bankruptcy, in- and out-of-court in all industries, but he leads the firm’s healthcare industry restructuring efforts nationwide. He has served as lead bankruptcy counsel to healthcare industry debtors, including in the recently completed chapter 11 bankruptcy cases of Verity Health System of California, Inc., and 15 related companies, the second largest hospital bankruptcy in American history, and in the Astria Health bankruptcy cases in Yakima, Washington. Before joining Dentons, Sam was a partner at a national bankruptcy boutique firm (1997-2015), and previous to that he represented the federal government nationwide as a trial attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Commercial Litigation Branch (1991-1996). He has also served in U.S. Army’s The Judge Advocate General’s Corps (1985-1991), including service in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, for which he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal, as well as an Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army (1977-1985). Sam has lectured extensively, is widely published, and been interviewed on television and radio on topics related to the healthcare industry and bankruptcy. Among many other honors, he is a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy, is ranked in Chambers in both Bankruptcy and Healthcare, and has regularly been named a “Super Lawyer” in an annual region-wide peer survey. Sam has his J.D. from George Washington University National Law Center (1985); an M.A. from Georgetown University (1983); and a B.S. from the United States Military Academy at West Point (1977).

Ms. Manewitz, Principal and Executive Director of Manewitz Weiker Associates, LLC, (“MWA”), a firm that specializes in the management of challenged investments. She represents bondholder and fund interests on boards, post chapter liquidation trusts and official bankruptcy committees. Sharon has also served as an advisor to fee examiners and fee auditors in Chapter 11 cases. In 2017 the New York Institute of Credit Women’s Division named Sharon Executive of the Year.

Prior to forming MWA, Sharon was a Managing Director at TIAA-CREF and head of its Workout and Distressed Investing Units. Among her significant achievements in the management of TIAA’s $8 billion portfolio, she led a successful proxy contest to unseat and replace the poorly performing board and management team of a public company. The Wall Street Journal recognized this action as a “big victory for institutional investors”.

As a Principal of MWA representing fund interests, Sharon sat on the creditor’s committee of General Growth Properties, holding the seat of Luxor Capital and she sat on the equity holder’s committee of Overseas Shipping Group, holding the seat of Caxton International. In both cases, a court approved ethical wall was established to permit Sharon’s clients to hold official committee seats while remaining unrestricted.

In Rock US Ventures, Sharon served as a director, pre and post-bankruptcy, and was appointed its Wind Down Officer, to recover the remaining assets of Rock US and its subsidiaries for the Bank of Scotland. In Advanta Liquidation Trust, a post chapter 11 entity, Sharon served as an independent director.

Sharon has a BA from Hunter College and an MBA, with honors, from Pace University, where she was awarded an Andrew Mellon fellowship. She also holds a certificate in Corporate Governance from NYU and is a Fellow of the National Association of Corporate Directors.

Mr. Ortiz provides efficient and practical advice to debtors, creditors, and other parties in interest in corporate restructurings, both in- and out-of-court.

Mr. Ortiz has represented debtors in some of the largest and most complex chapter 11 cases of the past decade, including: Pacific Drilling, Westinghouse, Toisa, SunEdison, Aeropostale, American Airlines, and Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc. Mr. Ortiz has also represented creditors and lenders in the financial services and real estate sectors. Mr. Ortiz’s pro bono work has been recognized by both the Legal Aid Society and the New York State Bar Association.

Mr. Ortiz is a frequent lecturer and author on a range of bankruptcy topics. In 2018 Mr. Ortiz was named by the American Bankruptcy Institute as one of its 40 Under 40 Rising Stars in the restructuring community and by Finance Monthly as Restructuring Lawyer of the Year. In 2019, Mr. Ortiz received an Emerging Leaders Award from The M&A Advisor, which recognizes and celebrates the achievements of outstanding young M&A, financing, and turnaround professionals who have reached a significant level of success while still under 40.

Prior to beginning his legal career, Mr. Ortiz founded Operation ASHA in Cambodia, an arm of the worldwide tuberculosis treatment organization, Operation ASHA. Operation ASHA in Cambodia has grown to over 50 tuberculosis treatment centers serving over a million people in 1283 villages in and around Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh. Mr. Ortiz currently sits on the U.S. Board of Directors for Operation ASHA Worldwide.

For more than 30 years, Mr. Oswald has focused his practice exclusively on bankruptcy, out-of-court restructurings and creditors’ rights matters. Mr. Oswald has represented clients in all facets of bankruptcy cases as well as insolvency issues in business transactions.

Mr. Oswald is a partner at Togut, Segal & Segal LLP, which he joined in 1986 following internships with the late Hon. Conrad B. Duberstein, Chief Bankruptcy Judge, and the Hon. Cecilia Goetz, Bankruptcy Judge (retired) in the Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of New York. Since then, Mr. Oswald has represented chapter 11 debtors, bankruptcy trustees, creditors’ committees, secured and unsecured creditors, shareholders, distressed investors, defendants in avoidance actions, mediators, plan administrators, as well as landlords and tenants in bankruptcy cases, and entities seeking to acquire assets out of bankruptcy.

Mr. Oswald has been named a New York Super Lawyer every year since 2010. He is also a member of the EDNY’s Bankruptcy Judges’ Chapter 11 Lawyers Advisory Committee, Board of the Turnaround Management Association (NY Chapter), a member of the ABI’s Committee on Healthcare Law, and a recognized lawyer in Chambers USA and Best Lawyers in America.

Cynthia Romano is the Global Director of CohnReznick’s Restructuring and Dispute Resolution practice. As a TMA Certified Turnaround Professional with 30 years of experience in performance improvement, turnaround management, transaction support, and investment analysis, Cynthia’s work has added significant value to middle market companies in various industries including healthcare, manufacturing, distribution, technology, and not-for-profit. She is the recipient of numerous awards for outstanding work including Smart CEO Top Female CEO, TMA Turnaround of the Year, and M&A Atlas Woman Dealmaker of the Year, has numerous board seats, panels, and publications to her credit, and is regularly quoted in industry publications and major news outlets. Ms. Romano holds degrees from Brown University and MIT.

Andrew H. Sherman is Chair of the Firm’s Creditors’ Rights/Bankruptcy Reorganization Practice Group. He has represented clients in a broad range of complex business reorganizations, debt restructurings and insolvency matters throughout the country. In addition to advising companies experiencing financial difficulties, Mr. Sherman routinely represents lenders and other parties in financings and acquisitions involving troubled companies.

He has focused his practice on representing investment management firms in debt restructuring matters, commercial workouts and Chapter 11 cases in such cases as Motor Coach Industries Int’l, Inc. and Marcal Paper Mills, Inc. He has also represented the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors in twenty-three (23) recent hospital bankruptcy cases, including Saint Michael’s Medical Center, Union Hospital District, Bayonne Medical Center, Christ Hospital, Hudson Healthcare, Inc., Fairmont General Hospital, et al., Progressive Acute Care LLC, Gardens Regional Hospital and Medical Center, Inc., Coshocton County Memorial Hospital Association, Gainesville Hospital District d/b/a North Texas Medical Center, Morehead Memorial Hospital, Curae Health, Inc., et al., Promise Healthcare Group, LLC, Astria Health, et al., Center City Healthcare, LLC d/b/a Hahnemann University Hospital, et al., Thomas Health System, Inc., Randolph Health, LRGHealthcare, MTPC, LLC, et al., Mercy Hospital and Medical Center, et al., Watsonville Hospital Corporation, et al., Madera Community Hospital and Beverly Community Hospital Association.

In addition, he has represented parties in significant commercial litigation in the New York and New Jersey federal and state courts.

Michael F. Thomson focuses his practice on navigating complex bankruptcy and receivership proceedings, workouts, and related litigation. Mike represents creditors, distressed companies, Chapter 7 and 11 trustees, and court-appointed receivers in virtually all aspects of the workout, restructuring, and liquidation process, including litigation and appeals.

Andrew Troop, the leader of Pillsbury’s Insolvency & Restructuring practice, advises a global clientele on business reorganizations, debtors’ and creditors’ rights and crisis response, representing them in high-profile cases and related litigation.

Andrew represents debtors, creditors, acquirers, landlords, and creditors’ and equity committees from diverse industries both in and out of court. He has helped private equity clients acquire, sell and reorganize U.S. and international portfolio companies and defend fraudulent transfer and breach of duty claims. He also represents nonprofits in debtors’ and creditors’ rights matters, and has distinguished himself representing States in complex restructurings where State priorities and the U.S. Bankruptcy Code intersect.

Andrew also has an active pro bono practice. He has served on the Board of Directors for the Greater Boston Legal Services for over a decade, was honored by the Massachusetts Bar Association with its 2017 Pro Bono Publico award, which is presented to individuals who have been instrumental in developing, implementing and supporting pro bono programs, and was honored by the David A. Grossman Fund for Social Justice at Harvard Law School for successfully preventing the eviction of numerous families and ensuring them affordable housing though 2067.

Sondra Wenger is Head Commercial Real Estate, Americas for CBRE Investment Management. In this role, Sondra is responsible for the overall leadership, strategic vision, and growth of the firm’s commercial real estate sector, including overseeing acquisitions and asset management. She is a member of the Americas Commercial Direct Real Estate Investment Committee, the CBRE Scientific Advisory Board, and the Portfolio Oversight Committee and she leads the marketplace pillar for Diversity Equity and Exclusion.

Prior to joining CBRE Investment Management in 2021, Sondra served as a senior executive for institutions including CIM Group, General Electric and Equity Office Properties. In these roles, she was responsible for strategizing, developing, and executing those firms’ real estate investment strategies. She has been accountable for a range of transactions, including equity and debt positions in stabilized, value-add, opportunistic and opportunity zone investments in office, life science, medical office, storage, retail, apartments, condominiums, industrial, data centers, cold storage, hotels, and mixed-use assets through direct and joint venture investments. Over the course of her career so far, Sondra has sourced, negotiated, and closed over $18 billion of transactions in multiple cities, both nationally and internationally.

Ms. Wenger currently serves as a Board Member for CA South (a women-owned development and investment management firm based in Nashville) and American Ventures (a value-add workforce housing investment firm based in Austin). She is a member of the Real Estate Roundtable. She is a member of the Urban Land Institute, where she serves as Membership Chair on the Executive Board for the Urban Mixed-Use Development Gold Council and a member of the New York ULI Advisory Board. She is a past California CPA, member of the ULI Leadership Council, and mentor for the ULI GROW program. She is a frequent speaker at real estate conferences and contributor to press articles.

Sondra has received several industry recognitions, including New York Restoration Project’s (which promotes green space for the City of New York) Green Goddess Award, Bisnow’s Los Angeles Power Women, NAWRB Commercial Leader Award, U.S. House of Representatives Commercial Leaders Award, and GlobeSt.com Women of Influence for Investment Professional and Mentor of the Year.

Ronald Winters is a co-founder and Managing Director of Gibbins Advisors. With more than 25 years of restructuring experience and a talent for managing complex problems while navigating the competing interests of stakeholders, Ron is one of the most experienced ‘middle market’ healthcare bankruptcy and restructuring professionals in the country.

Ron has deep expertise and strong record of achievement across the healthcare, higher and education and not-for-profit sectors. Prior to forming Gibbins Advisors, Ron was a Managing Director at each of Healthcare Management Partners and Alvarez & Marsal where he worked a combined 18 years. He spent the first half of his professional career managing portfolio assets and credit policy at what is now Mizuho Financial Group, one of the world’s largest financial organizations.

Ron is currently the appointed Independent Monitor for Mission Health System’s six-hospital portfolio in North Carolina acquired by the for-profit HCA Healthcare for $1.5 billion. In that role Gibbins Advisors is responsible for ensuring HCA adheres to certain contractual commitments around retaining hospitals, services, and charity care for 10 years.