John Heller, Advisory Services Director, Quoted in The Metropolitcan Corporate Counsel Article, "Bankruptcy Issues for Healthy Companies: What Creditors Face."
The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel
Excerpt:
Editor: Tell us about your practice, including your work in situations involving distressed companies.
Heller: I have 23 years of experience in accounting, tax and management related to insolvency, turnaround and related litigation issues. I am a CPA, a CFF (Certified in Financial Forensics) and a CIRA (Certified Insolvency and Reorganization Advisor) promulgated by the AIRA (Assoc. of Insolvency Advisors). I get involved in bankruptcy and restructuring matters from cradle to grave. If you were to equate troubled companies to sick patients, I would equate my roles to the emergency room doctor, the triage surgeon, the recovery room nurse and if things go bad, the undertaker.
Editor: Who are your clients in the bankruptcy context?
Heller: My client base consists of creditors, official committees of unsecured creditors (“Committees”), law firms, and bankruptcy panel trustees, with emphasis in debtor and fiduciary engagements. As a fiduciary, I’ve acted as the chief restructuring officer (CRO) in a bankruptcy, as a receiver outside of bankruptcy and as an assignee under the State of Florida bankruptcy statute. Within the Chapter 7 or Chapter 11 contexts, we may be hired as the financial adviser for the bankruptcy trustee.
Of recent note on the creditors’ side, I managed Marcum’s engagement as the financial advisor for the Committee on the recent Rothstein Rosenfeldt and Adler (RRA) bankruptcy, a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme in the Southern District of Florida in which the creditors recovered 100 percent of their allowed claims.
