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Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, after reportedly making progress Tuesday and Wednesday, plans to return to Lansing next week to push for state money to aid the city’s bankruptcy settlement, but he’ll do so as anti-tax activists say they will pull out all the stops to squash the move, the Detroit Free Press reported today. The leader of a Michigan anti-tax group affiliated with the Tea Party movement, Americans for Prosperity, said that his group will fight any such appropriation and plans to mail literature and make phone calls to certain lawmakers’ home districts to put the pressure on. Orr is expected to caucus with Republicans next week as they prepare to introduce a package of bills to provide for the state contribution. The proposal is the equivalent of $350 million over 20 years, but there is growing traction in Lansing for a single up-front payment that would be closer to $200 million.

Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr last month pledged $36.2 million for police from a $120 million loan from Barclays Plc approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Department officials wouldn’t discuss plans for the money, though Orr’s shopping list includes vehicles, station houses and a training facility for the city, which piled up $18 billion of debt by the time it filed for bankruptcy in July. The money can’t come soon enough for a shrunken department that patrols 139 square miles (360 square kilometers) scarred by blight and poverty with decade-old cruisers. The loan was obtained this month and will be spent as purchases and bids are processed, said city Chief Financial Officer John Hill. He said police vehicles must be ordered from manufacturers and outfitted with special equipment. In the meantime, many Detroit residents are fending for themselves.

Court-appointed mediators said yesterday that Detroit and a coalition of 14 city employee unions have reached a tentative deal on five-year collective bargaining agreements, Reuters reported yesterday. The agreement in principle covers the major aspects of labor contracts with the city's largest union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and 13 other bargaining units, said the mediators, who were appointed by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge overseeing Detroit's historic municipal bankruptcy. Kevyn Orr, the city's state-appointed emergency manager, has been reaching many deals this month with key creditors, including Detroit's two retirement systems and three bond insurance companies, giving him critical support for his blueprint for the city's emergence from bankruptcy. Once the union pacts are finalized and ratified by union members, the terms will be included in the city's plan of adjustment, which must be approved by the bankruptcy court, the mediators said in a written statement. Terms of the deal, which covers 3,500 workers, were not released and will be made public once the contracts are ratified.

A committee created by a U.S. bankruptcy court to represent Detroit's retired workers said on Friday that it reached an agreement in principle with the city over pensions and health care, Reuters reported on Saturday. The agreement, which was incorporated into a revised debt adjustment plan the city filed with the court on Friday, added to a pile of deals Detroit reached with other major creditors this month. It also increases the ranks of creditors that Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr has lined up so far to support his plan to adjust the city's $18 billion of debt and exit the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history that was filed in July 2013. "The deal, which includes significant protections and potential enhancements for retirees under the city's plan, a cap on maximum pension losses to individual retirees and significantly greater funding for retiree health care benefits, reflects the significant efforts of the nine-member committee and its professionals," said a statement released by the retiree committee's law firm Dentons.

In a speech on Friday at ABI’s Annual Spring Meeting, Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr said that "every city has an opportunity for rebirth"—a realization that he said struck him as he leads the troubled city of 685,000 residents through the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Already Orr has brokered a deal with Wall Street banks to cut a $400 million debt to about $75 million, and the city also has a commitment of more than $800 million from nonprofits and the state. "There's been some heavy lifting...but we're getting it done," said Orr, who used to work for the prominent Jones Day law firm. The city's plan to get out of bankruptcy still needs approval from Judge Steven Rhodes. (Subscription required.)
http://bankruptcynews.dowjones.com/Article?an=DJFDBR0020140425ea4pp26j5…

Don’t miss Fox Business News interview with Kevyn Orr on Friday from ABI’s Annual Spring Meeting: http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/3507439713001/detroit-deadline-for-bankr…

While negotiating smaller cuts than originally proposed, Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr has imposed tough financial discipline and will put the city on a sustainable post-bankruptcy course, according to a Wall Street Journal editorial today. Voter-approved unlimited general obligation bonds, which are backed by the city's "full faith and credit," will be slashed by 26 percent while unsecured "limited" general-obligation bond holders may recover just 15 percent. The haircuts ought to remind investors that no debt is risk free. Bond insurers are crying foul at Orr's suing to void $1.4 billion in certificates of participation that the city issued in 2005 to backfill its pension funds. Orr argues that the city set up "sham" agencies to issue the certificates, which exceeded its legal debt limit. Investors were either complicit in the deception or failed to do their due diligence, and now they're getting a useful lesson in the risks of doing business with scofflaws. (Registration required.)
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB100014240527023048109045795098608…

Both Fox Business News and C-SPAN are scheduled to provide coverage of Kevyn Orr's keynote today at 1 p.m. from ABI's 32nd Annual Spring Meeting in Washington, D.C.! If you are not able to attend in person, be sure to tune in! ABI will also be streaming the keynote live via webcast at www.abiworld.org.

Detroit's chief financial officer said yesterday future once it exits the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history will depend on oversight, Reuters reported yesterday. "I believe the post-bankruptcy structure is absolutely critical and that right now is a big question mark," John Hill said yesetrday. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes, who is overseeing Detroit's case, recently raised the idea of a court-appointed monitor. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder (R) has mentioned the possibility of a control board similar to one used for New York City's fiscal crisis in the 1970s. While Kevyn Orr, the city's state-appointed emergency manager who took Detroit to bankruptcy court, is expected to leave his position in September, Hill said that the state has the option of replacing him if necessary.

For further analysis on the Detroit chapter 9 filing and to hear a keynote speech by Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, make sure to attend ABI's Annual Spring Meeting in Washington, D.C. starting today! Not able to attend? Orr's keynote speech on Friday will also be live-streamed on the ABI website: http://www.abiworld.org//AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home.

Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes tapped a top restructuring official at Phoenix Management Services on Tuesday to help the court determine if Detroit’s plan to adjust its $18 billion of debt is feasible, Reuters reported yesterday. Judge Rhodes also named Richard Ravitch as a consultant to the court on municipal finance matters. Ravitch, who advised New York City during its fiscal crisis in the 1970s and who had served as a New York State lieutenant governor, agreed to consult for free and will not be required to testify in the case, according to the judge's order. Martha Kopacz, a senior managing director at Phoenix Management Services in Boston, beat out four other applicants, including Ravitch, for the position of expert witness. In his appointment order, Judge Rhodes said that Kopacz will also determine whether Detroit's assumptions regarding cash-flow projections and forecasts of revenue, expenses and plan payments are reasonable.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/22/usa-detroit-bankruptcy-expert…
For further analysis on the Detroit chapter 9 filing and to hear a keynote speech by Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, make sure to attend Thursday's Annual Spring Meeting in Washington, D.C.! Not able to attend? Orr's keynote speech on Friday will also be live-streamed on the ABI website: http://www.abiworld.org//AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home.

Applicants ranging from New York municipal finance expert Richard Ravitch to a local law professor bid to help Judge Steven Rhodes evaluate Detroit's financial restructuring plan, but Rhodes ended the recruitment session on Friday without naming his choice, Reuters reported on Saturday. "The expert witness will be my expert and is limited to an examination of the city's plan and the reasonableness of assumptions that go into it," Rhodes said. Detroit, with $18 billion of debt and other obligations, filed the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history in July 2013 and in recent days has reached settlements with several major creditor groups. Ravitch, who during the 1970s advised on New York City's successful effort to avoid bankruptcy, bemoaned Detroit's woeful financial circumstance. Ravitch offered to work without pay, though he proposed just under a $1 million budget for work by his non-profit firm, the Ravitch Group. Other applicants for the job included William Brandt Jr. of Development Specialists, Prof. Peter Hammer of Wayne State University, Martha Kopacz, of Phoenix Management Services LLC in Boston and Dean Kaplan, a managing director of PFM Group of Philadelphia, which has advised on financial restructuring in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and also worked with the Detroit Public Schools. Full story: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/19/usa-detroit-bankruptcy-idUSL2…

For further analysis on the Detroit chapter 9 filing and to hear a keynote speech by Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, make sure to attend this week’s Annual Spring Meeting in Washington, D.C.! Not able to attend? Orr’s keynote speech will also be live-streamed on the ABI website.

Detroit’s “divide-and-conquer” campaign to build support for its plan to shrink $18 billion in debt with a recent series of creditor accords may put pressure on holdouts to settle before a bankruptcy judge decides to push it through, lawyers following the case said, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. “‘Divide and conquer’ does seem to be the strategy that the city is pursuing, which is often a fear of creditors,” said George South, an attorney with DLA Piper LLP in New York, alluding to how the city has methodically reached agreements with individual creditor groups in its quest to resolve the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history by year’s end. Under a proposal announced April 15, Detroit’s emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, agreed to pay retired city police officers and firefighters their full monthly pensions. Hours later, the pension system for general employees, such as city hall clerks and street workers, said it, too, had settled with Orr. Those accords followed an agreement last week that would pay investors who hold unlimited general obligation bonds 74 percent of what they are owed. Holders of limited GO bonds would get only 15 percent under Orr’s debt-adjustment plan.