Counsel to Second Lien Holder in Homebuilder Chapter 11

Counsel to Real Estate Investment Ventures, LLC ("REIV"), holder of a $72 million secured second-lien position in the Mercedes Homes bankruptcy proceeding pending in the Southern District of Florida. At the time of its bankruptcy filing, Mercedes Homes was the fifteenth largest homebuilder in the country, with operations in Florida, Texas, and the Carolinas, and had over $240 million in secured debt. We successfully defended against challenges to the validity, priority, and extent of REIV's claims against the debtors. We were then able to negotiate a consensual plan of reorganization with the debtors, their official creditors committee, and first-lien lenders, resulting in the first sustainable homebuilder reorganization since the 2007 real estate collapse. Per the plan, REIV converted part of its debt into the equity of the reorganized debtor and became the owner of the reorganized debtor on a going-forward basis.