Practice

David Botter advises on large, complex restructuring cases, both out of court and in Chapter 11, across a variety of industries. He frequently handles multijurisdictional and cross-border matters for both distressed companies and major creditors, with an emphasis on creditors’ committees and bondholder committees.

Chambers USA recognizes David as “a calming presence, cerebral and experienced”. He is particularly respected for his representation of bondholders as part of his broad creditor-side practice. He has experience with matters in the health care, transportation and energy sectors, among others.

David advises a broad range of clients, including: bondholders, institutional investors, hedge funds, debtors-in-possession, post-petition lenders, and acquirors of distressed assets.

Representative Work

• Advised an ad hoc group of senior noteholders of Aerovias de Mexico, S.A. de C.V. in the Chapter 11 cases of Aeroméxico, Mexico’s flagship airline.
• Representing an ad hoc group in connection with the restructuring of Credito Real, a nonbank financial institution headquartered in Mexico City, Mexico, that provides payroll loans and small business loans in Mexico and Latin America and used auto loans in Mexico, Latin America and the United States.
• Representing an ad hoc group of bondholders in connection with the restructuring of Unifin Financiera, S.A.B. de C.V., a Mexico-based non-banking financial company, which engages in the provision of leasing services including operations leasing, factoring and other credits.
• Representing the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors in connection with the chapter 11 cases of Pipeline Health System, LLC, an independent healthcare network with hospitals across California, Texas and Illinois.
• Assisted an ad hoc group of private placement noteholders of Nordic Aviation Capital in its Irish scheme of arrangement.
• Represented the ad hoc committee of senior unsecured noteholders in Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s (PG&E) closely watched $30+ billion Chapter 11 cases—one of the industry’s largest ongoing bankruptcies. Throughout this highly complex and widely publicized restructuring, the Akin Gump team has been working tirelessly to promote the interests of the noteholders and navigate through myriad complicated disputes in connection with PG&E’s attempt to reorganize.
• Advised the official committee of unsecured creditors of Adeptus Health Inc., one of the largest operators of freestanding emergency rooms in the United States. Despite the contentious, controversial and complex nature of the case, the debtors obtained plan approval less than six months after filing following a two-day trial. Under the plan, and due to the efforts of Akin Gump, the general unsecured creditors achieved substantially better outcomes than they would have recovered in a straight waterfall plan or a liquidation.
• Advised FirstEnergy Solutions Corp. (FES) in its $5 billion debt restructuring, which was among the largest and most complex filings of 2018. The Akin Gump team devised a multipronged operational and balance sheet restructuring strategy in an effort to save plants and more than 4,500 jobs. FES secured big wins over the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and contract counterparties on rejecting costly power purchase agreements, and developed a massive public affairs operation aimed at delivering regulatory support for the fleet. It also secured a comprehensive $1 billion plus global settlement, eliminating the threat of years of protracted litigation, and sold its certain noncore assets. FES emerged from bankruptcy in February 2020.
• Other seminal engagements include Delta Airlines, Nortel Networks, Answers Corporation, Hercules Offshore Inc. and International Shipholding Corporation.

Ken Monaghan is a Managing Director, Co-Director of High Yield, a Portfolio Manager, and member of the team managing US High Yield and Global High Yield portfolios and separate accounts. He is a member of Amundi US’s Investment Committee.

Prior to joining Amundi US in 2014, Ken was a Partner and Portfolio Manager at Rogge Global Partners where he was responsible for US High Yield and was an integral part of Rogge’s GlobalHigh Yield strategy; he also ran Rogge’s New York office. He joined Rogge in 2008 from INGInvestment Management where he was Managing Director and Portfolio Manager responsible forUS High Yield. Ken brought ING’s institutional US high yield strategy to Rogge. He co-founded the strategy in 1996 at a predecessor organization to ING and was co-portfolio manager of the strategy from its inception and the sole senior portfolio manager from 2007 through June 2014 when he left Rogge. Prior to becoming a portfolio manager, Ken spent 13 years at Salomon Brothers, starting as a high yield analyst eventually heading Salomon’s high yield research effort in New York. He subsequently spent five years in London as head of Salomon’s London credit research team and upon his return to New York in 1991 launched Salomon’s nascent distressed credit effort. He spent his final years at Salomon as a Director of Institutional Sales. He began his career as a credit analyst at Lord, Abbett & Co.Ken is a graduate of Colgate University and holds both a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree in Finance and a Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree from New York University

Alejandro Sainz heads the Insolvency and Restructurings practice area at the firm and is also a member of the Finance, Compliance and Investigations, and M&A practice groups.

Alejandro has more than 30 years of experience advising and representing clients in cases of cross-border insolvency and restructuring (both out-of-court and in-court proceedings - concursos mercantiles), finance, refinancing, and corporate reorganizations, as well as in the purchase and sale of distressed assets. Throughout his vast experience, he has represented clients from various industries, both nationally and internationally, domestic and foreign companies, public and private organizations, as well as several ad-hoc committees of international bondholders and noteholders issued abroad by Mexican issuers.

He is also well-known for his service to the community, by providing pro-bono representation to various organizations. He has taught and spoken in several courses, seminars, postgraduate courses and lectures, in Mexico and abroad, on topics such as restructuring, commercial bankruptcy and cross-border restructuring and insolvency proceedings. He is a member of several boards of directors and committees.

Alejandro is listed in Chambers Latin America as Band One Lawyer in Bankruptcy / Restructuring; in The Legal 500 as Hall of Fame Lawyer for Bankruptcy and Restructuring; in Who’s Who Legal as Global and National Leader for Restructuring and Insolvency; in Best Lawyers in Mexico for Insolvency and Reorganization Law (2023); among other important recognitions.  

His latest publications are:

• Alejandro Sainz and Gabriela Avendaño; "The Interplay Between Different Stakeholders in Mexican Restructurings: Equity Versus Debt" in The Guide to Restructuring, Edition 3; Latin Lawyer; 2023. 
• Alejandro Sainz and Gabriela Avendaño, "Mexico: Restructuring & Insolvency" in the Restructuring & Insolvency Country Comparative Guide - Q&A; The Legal 500; 2022. 
• Alejandro Sainz and Gabriela Avendaño, "Mexico: Law and Practice" in Chambers Insolvency 2022 Guide.
• Alejandro Sainz and Gabriela Avendaño, "Mexico: An Introduction to Bankruptcy/Restructuring", Overview for the Bankruptcy/ Restructuring Chapter in Chambers Latin America 2024. 

Robert L Rauch

Managing Director, Miller Buckfire & Co

Robert L Rauch is a managing director at Miller Buckfire & Co, a Stifel Company. He focuses on debt restructuring services for issuers and investors in the global emerging markets, covering the full spectrum of corporate and sovereign debt liability management, recapitalizations and restructurings. Prior to joining Miller Buckfire/Stifel in March 2021, Rob was senior partner and portfolio manager at Gramercy Funds Management, a US$5 billion investment firm specializing in emerging markets fixed income and special situations investments. During his 20-year tenure at the firm, he was portfolio manager for Gramercy’s high-yield and distressed funds, served on its investment committees, and was committee chair or a leading creditor in the restructuring of US$79 billion of debt across four dozen emerging markets issuers. He also served on the boards of Satmex, Pendulum, Banro and Credivalores. Earlier in his career, Rob served in a variety of advisory, credit, trading and corporate finance roles at firms including Lehman Brothers, CS First Boston, First Interstate Bank and Swiss Bank Corporation. Rob has a graduate business degree from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and an undergraduate degree from Williams College.

He obtained his Law Degree from Escuela Libre de Derecho, his Master in Business Administration in Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, his Masters in Global Management in Tulane University and his PhD in law in Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas of UNAM.

He was CEO of Sonpetrol México for more than 4 years and currently he is Managing Partner of SOELI Consulting.

In 2019, he was honored as one of the 40 under 40 by the American Bankruptcy Institute. It was the first time such recognition was given to a Mexican.

He has been appointed as leading counsel, off-counsel and expert witness in some of the most relevant insolvency cases in Mexico as REFA Mexicana, Vitro, Mexicana de Aviación, Oceanografía, Altos Hornos de México, ICA, Abengoa México, Interjet, Interjet Vacations, among others.

He has given television, radio and internet conferences, lectures, and interviews in several countries as: Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, U.S.A., and the United Kingdom. He has given classes to undergraduates, diploma and master degrees in many Universities as Escuela Libre de Derecho, in which he is the joint professor of the insolvency course; Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM), Universidad Panamericana, Universidad Anahuac, Instituto Nacional de Desarrollo Jurídico, the Supreme Court of Justice of Hidalgo and the Mexican Supreme Court.

He is author of the book: “La conservación de la empresa mercantil” published by Editorial Tirant lo Blanch and co-author of the book: “Todo concursal” published by Wolters Kluwer.