The ABI Asset Sales Committee announced the winner of the second annual Asset Sale of the Year Award at the beginning of a July 22, 2020, Asset Sales Committee webinar titled, Evolving Landscape of Distressed M&A Activity.
The winner of the 2020 Asset Sale of the Year Award is In re Agera Energy, LLC, et al., Case No. 19-23802 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. - Judge Robert D. Drain). The Asset Sales Committee was very impressed by the number and kind of nominations this year, which reflected obstacles and challenges and the unique and creative ways that professionals overcame them.
The voting this year was especially energized and the results very close, but what put Agera Energy over the top is that the professionals involved were able to accomplish something that had never been done before. Specifically, this transaction was the first time that a retail energy supplier successfully sold its book of “in the money” customer contracts to a buyer in chapter 11 (as opposed to a platform sale for the entire business). This has been attempted in other retail energy cases, but due to the highly regulated nature of the industry, those efforts have failed. Agera Energy was nominated by Darren Azman, a partner at McDermott Will & Emery LLP who represented the debtors. GlassRatner was the debtors’ financial advisor, and Miller Buckfire was their investment banker. McGuireWoods, LLP acted as counsel to Exelon Generation Company, which was the buyer, and Haynes and Boone LLP was counsel to BP Energy Company, the secured lender and the DIP lender.
Also, due to the many amazing submissions, the Asset Sales Committee has selected an Honorable Mention: Richard’s Foodporium (a.k.a. Whole Foods Inc.) Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors, Case No. 2018-CA-005922, 12th Judicial Circuit Court for Manatee County, Fla. What made this case stand out was that it involved an assignment for the benefit of creditors where the sale resulted in unsecured creditors receiving a 100% distribution, a highly unusual result for an ABC. Nominated by Philip von Kahle, president of Michael Moecker & Associates, Inc., the assignee in the ABC.