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Opportunities in the New Reality

Asset Distress & Revitalization

  • Overview
  • Contact Us
  • Insights & Events
  • Related Experience

The global economy is experiencing challenges not seen in decades. A combination of factors - rising interest rates, untamed inflation, continuing supply chain difficulties, soaring insurance costs, and geopolitical instability, among others -  have come together to create a great degree of uncertainty, but also opportunity, across financial markets, property markets, and wide swathes of industry.

As the business community grapples with economic uncertainty, financial institutions and investors will re-assess the positioning of assets, associated valuations, and the sourcing and deployment of capital for new ventures. Consequently, strategic business and legal guidance tailored to the varying challenges and circumstances will be critical for long-term success. Some firms will need to reinvent business models, restructure operations, or discover new areas where they can add value, while others will need strategies to protect existing assets from unforeseen challenges. Still others may find that they need to divest assets or consider bankruptcy.

Bilzin Sumberg can assist with recommendations for making decisions about best options for the future, whether preparing for new risks, restructuring, divesting, or acquiring assets, distressed or not, in the new economy.

The team includes lawyers from multiple disciplines with market-leading business and legal experience focused on:

• Restructuring and bankruptcy, including buying assets out of bankruptcy and defaulted loan sales and purchases
• Loan workouts, including forbearances and discounted pay-offs
• Rescue capital, including preferred equity, mezzanine loans, and bridge loans
• Mortgage and mezzanine loan foreclosures, deeds in lieu of foreclosure, and receivership sales
• REO sales for lenders
• Corporate structuring and joint venture formation, including public-private partnerships
• Alternative lending, including private equity and other opportunity funds
• Real estate, from acquisition and construction to disposition, including adaptive reuse of property
• Land use and entitlements
• Environmental issues
• Tax-efficient structuring
• Litigation and dispute resolution
 

Corporate Debt: Still Growing, and Still a Concern
Financial Services Watch Blog

As the pandemic began unfolding about a year ago, we wrote about the risk that the high volume of corporate debt might make it the next market bubble to burst. The issuance of corporate debt only accelerated in 2020 compared to 2019, growing by 17% and setting a new record in volume. S&P Global Ratings has predicted that corporate debt issuance in 2021 will remain robust, decreasing by only 3% compared to a frenetic 2020 (which would still be up 14% over 2019 levels).

Click below to learn more about the implications of this continued acceleration of corporate debt issuance brought upon by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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A tale of two markets: Some CMBS players see huge losses, others opportunity

The Real Deal

In today's economic client, foreclosures and loan modifications in the CMBS market - particularly in the hotel and retail market - are becoming more prevalent. More real estate investment firms are considering turning over properties tied to securitized commercial mortgages back to lenders, while banks and other CMBS servicers are increasingly faced with the difficult decision of foreclosing or making serious loan modifications. CMBS debt restructurings are highly complex, with a litany of problems for borrowers, lenders, and bondholders, and particularly for borrowers looking to refinance distressed assets after special servicing commences.

“If the borrower recently cashed out with a refinancing, they will be more likely to hand [the property] back to the lender,” said Suzanne Amaducci, head of real estate at Bilzin Sumberg.

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White Knights or Opportunists? Bridge, Preferred Equity Investors an Option for Struggling Real Estate

GlobeSt.com

"Bridge lenders and preferred equity investors are in line to become the go-to rescuers for property owners, especially hoteliers and retailers that have taken the hardest hit. … Attorneys who negotiate between lenders and borrowers also are seeing an uptick. Bilzin Sumberg Miami partner and real estate head Suzanne Amaducci is looking at more than $200 million in interest for bridge loans and preferred equity. 'People are definitely researching the opportunities,' Amaducci said."

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Meet the Team
Philip R. Stein
Partner, Trial & Litigation
Jeffrey I. Snyder
General Counsel, Head of Bankruptcy, CMBS Litigation and Workouts, Bankruptcy & Restructuring, Trial & Litigation, CMBS
Karyl Argamasilla
Co-Head, CMBS and Real Estate Capital Markets, CMBS Transactional and Workouts Team, Real Estate, CMBS
Suzanne M. Amaducci
Chair of Real Estate & Finance, Real Estate, Hospitality
Jake M. Greenberg
Partner, Trial & Litigation
Marjie C. Nealon
Partner, Real Estate, CMBS
Insights & Events
  • Speaking Engagement
  • January 10, 2024
Special Assets – Talking Your Book: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
CRE Finance Council
Suzanne M. Amaducci moderates theSpecial Assets – Talking Your Book: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly panel at the CRE Finance Council Miami 2024 Servicing Summit.The panel discusses originations, loan workouts, and asset performance across asset classes.
  • Publication
  • December 4, 2023
4 Trends That Will Shape Florida Real Estate in 2024
Commercial Observer
Bilzin Sumberg is on the front lines in identifying development and investment opportunities, securing entitlements and financing, negotiating and documenting workouts, counseling developers and investors in transactions, and navigating construction-related matters.
  • Lawcast Podcast
  • March 30, 2021
Episode 2: Foreclosures and Bankruptcy in the Age of COVID
Opportunities in the New Reality: Asset Distress and Revitalization
Bilzin Sumberg attorneys Jeffrey Snyder and Jake Greenberg discuss the nuances of foreclosures and bankruptcy as the economy emerges from the coronavirus pandemic and grapples with its fallout. They cover current developments related to this area of the law, and conduct a deep dive into a case with ...
  • Lawcast Podcast
  • February 16, 2021
Episode 1: Impending Wave of Distressed Assets & Common Types of Related Dispute...
Opportunities in the New Reality: Asset Distress & Revitalization Series
Litigation Practice Group Leader, Phil Stein, discusses the impending wave in distressed assets, types of disputes that commonly arise when an asset goes into distress, and lessons from the last recession.
  • Publication
  • December 8, 2020
Will CMBS litigation be the new RMBS litigation?
National Mortgage News
The economic havoc wreaked by COVID-19 may have the knock on effect of a wave of Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities (CMBS) litigation, mirroring the deluge of Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities (RMBS) litigation following the 2008 financial crisis.
  • Speaking Engagement
  • November 13, 2020
Hospitality Reboot: Post-COVID Opportunities and Transformation
University of Miami
Suzanne Amaducci moderates a panel discussion on Hospitality Reboot: Post-COVID Opportunities and Transformation as part of the University of Miami's U-Talk Real Estate Lecture Series.
Related Experience
  • Experience
  • October 23, 2014
$130 Billion in CMBS 2.0 Pools
Representation of B piece and special servicer clients, handling in excess of $130billion in 2.0 CMBSsecuritizations.
  • Experience
  • September 17, 2012
Loan Forbearances, Modifications, Restructurings, and Dispositions
Handled billions of dollars in distressed debt related to modifications, extensions, forbearances, discounted payoffs, and deeds in lieu of foreclosure.
  • Experience
  • September 08, 2012
Lead Bankruptcy Counsel in Las Vegas Hotel Chapter 11
Debtors' counsel to Fontainebleau Las Vegas Holdings, LLC, and two of its affiliates in their chapter 11 cases in the Southern District of Florida. The debtors had over $2 billion of funded debt, had used $500 million of equity, and were prosecuting claims for $800 million in unpaid additional finan...
  • Experience
  • October 23, 2014
Billions in Consents to Loan Assumptions and Equity Transfers
Representation of special servicers in connection with borrower requests for lender consent to various matters involving billions of dollars of performing CMBS loans including loan assumptions, equity transfers, loan modifications, forward and reverse 1031 exchanges, post-securitization mezzanine lo...
  • Experience
  • August 30, 2013
Restructuring and Pay Off of Hotel Loans with Over $1.4 Billion Aggregate Value
Representation of special servicer in the restructuring and ultimate pay off of several high- profile hotel loans including the $729.9 million loan secured by the Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott Grande Lakes hotels in Orlando, Florida and the JW Marriott in Phoenix, Arizona; the $385 million loan secur...
  • Experience
  • August 21, 2012
Sale of Billions of Dollars of Loans
Handled the sale of billions of dollars of loans, including one bulk sale of 240 distressed real loans, with an aggregate outstanding balance in excess of $925 million.