Expert on Systemic Risk Regulation to Keynote ABIs Sixth Annual Corporate Restructuring Competition in November

Expert on Systemic Risk Regulation to Keynote ABIs Sixth Annual Corporate Restructuring Competition in November

Contact: John Hartgen
               (703) 739-0800
               [email protected]

 

EXPERT ON “SYSTEMIC RISK” REGULATION TO KEYNOTE ABI’S SIXTH ANNUAL CORPORATE RESTRUCTURING COMPETITION IN NOVEMBER

July 17, 2009, Alexandria, Va. —The American Bankruptcy Institute’s (ABI) Sixth Annual Corporate Restructuring Competition will be held Nov. 5-6. The event is hosted by the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Chicago. The competition provides the nation’s top MBA programs with a unique opportunity to learn by solving a real-world restructuring case problem. The students have a week to “solve” the problem and prepare comprehensive presentations showing their operational and financial plans before panels of judges representing senior company management and bondholders, with a final round before a mock board of directors. Judges for the competition are all experienced professionals from some of the top restructuring and financial firms in the country. The investment banking firm of Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin will again provide the case problem.

The keynote dinner speaker will be Peter J. Wallison, the Arthur F. Burns Fellow in Financial Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. Wallison, who accurately forecast the meltdown of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s portfolio of risky mortgages, co-directs AEI’s program on financial policy studies, including banking, insurance and securities regulation. Wallison’s current scholarship focuses on financial regulation proposals from the administration to resolve the problems of “systemically important” companies (so-called “too big to fail”) through a government agency rather than bankruptcy, with Wallison favoring the bankruptcy alternative. More than 120 ABI members and bankruptcy judges from the Chicago area will attend the dinner. Brian Shaw of Shaw Gussis et al (Chicago) is the dinner program chair.

Past winners of the Corporate Restructuring Competition include Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business, the Stern Graduate School of Business of New York University and Stanford Graduate Business School. Winning teams receive prizes of $5,000 for first place, $3,000 for second, $1,750 for third and $1,250 for fourth place. The first-place school will also receive the Bettina M. Whyte Trophy, named in honor of the former ABI president and founder of the competition. To find out more about the competition’s rules, please visit http://www.abiworld.org/crc/rules.html.

Schools interested in participating in the competition should contact Shannon Nelligan at ABI, (703) 739-0800 or [email protected].

For more information about the Corporate Restructuring Competition, please visit www.abiworld.org/crc.

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ABI is the largest multi-disciplinary, nonpartisan organization dedicated to research and education on matters related to insolvency. ABI was founded in 1982 to provide Congress and the public with unbiased analysis of bankruptcy issues. The ABI membership includes more than 12,000 attorneys, accountants, bankers, judges, professors, lenders, turnaround specialists and other bankruptcy professionals, providing a forum for the exchange of ideas and information. For additional information on ABI, visit www.abiworld.org. For additional conference information, visit http://www.abiworld.org/conferences.html.