Bankrupt mortgage lender Residential Capital LLC's restructuring chief said that the company made no effort to put a value on the legal claims that are now an obstacle to its plan to repay creditors, Reuters reported yesterday. ResCap is in the midst of a six-day hearing before Judge Martin Glenn, seeking approval for the plan that would allow it to end its chapter 11 proceeding and begin paying back creditors, including the owners of residential mortgage-backed securities that collapsed in the 2008 mortgage crisis. Most creditors support the plan, but one group of bondholders wants the plan thrown out because they say it shortchanges them by $340 million in owed interest payments. At a hearing yesterday, a lawyer for the bondholders asked the company's restructuring chief, Lewis Kruger, whether he and his team of advisers made efforts to quantify what the claims may have been worth. Kruger said they did not do so, but rather the company tried to reach a compromise that all sides could live with, and that would save the company years of expensive litigation and delay creditor payouts.
