Kaye Scholer Represents Van Kampen Investments in Restructuring of Ames Taping Tools

New York — On March 12, 2010, Ames Taping Tools, a leading provider of automatic taping and finishing tools headquartered in Atlanta, GA, was successfully restructured through a sale of the business to existing investors led by Aurora Capital Group, GSC Group and Saybrook Capital. The transaction was completed under section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code less than three months after the company filed Chapter 11 in Delaware. The sale was structured such that the investor group and the first-lien lenders formed a new company and made a de facto credit bid (i.e., non-cash consideration consisting of new debt and a portion of the new equity), with the investors acquiring the majority of the new equity through an infusion of new money to finance the new enterprise. The terms of the restructuring were agreed to in a prepetition lockup agreement signed by the company, a majority of its first- and second-lien lenders, and the investor group. Kaye Scholer represented the largest lender, Van Kampen Investments, which lead the negotiations for the first-lien lenders. In connection with the sale, the first-lien lenders exchanged their debt for the new notes issued by the purchaser and, for those lenders that elected to receive "payment in kind" notes in lieu of partial cash pay notes, roughly 25% of the new equity. Van Kampen is also the largest lender under a new revolving working capital facility. The Kaye Scholer team was lead by Tyler Nurnberg and Matthew Micheli (Business Reorganization & Creditors Rights, Chicago) and Alan Glantz (Finance, New York), and received substantial contributions from, among others, Stephen Koval and Konstantinos Yiannopoulos (Corporate, New York); Rachel Kless (Real Estate, New York); and Laurie Abramowitz (Tax, New York).