Overview
Carole M. Wurzelbacher focuses her practice on corporate and transactional matters. She represents debtor and creditor-side clients with respect to in- and out-of-court restructurings and advises on risks in connection with workouts and other commercial issues. She has represented large companies based in the United States and in Europe—and across a variety of industries—in multibillion dollar bankruptcy-related matters.
Following law school, Carole clerked for the Honorable Catherine J. Furay, Chief Judge of the US Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, and the Honorable Brendan L. Shannon of the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.
Results
- Represented Wellpath Holdings, Inc. and certain of its affiliates in their chapter 11 cases in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas. Wellpath is the leading provider of healthcare to vulnerable patients in challenging clinical environments and had debt obligations of approximately $650 million as of the chapter 11 filing. The representation included a court-approved sale of Wellpath’s Recovery Solutions division for a purchase price of $395 million and the reorganization of Wellpath’s Corrections business. Wellpath filed its chapter 11 cases with a restructuring support agreement signed by 85% of its first-lien lenders and more than 80% of its second-lien lenders, through which Wellpath secured an approximately $326 million debtor-in-possession financing facility. McDermott negotiated and Wellpath issued, upon exit, a $135 million first lien takeback credit facility and $50 million equity investment from a group of first- and second-lien lenders
- Represented Service King Paint & Body LLC, the third largest operator of auto body collision repair facilities in the U.S. (operating over 300 facilities across 24 states and Washington D.C.), and certain of its affiliates in an out-of-court restructuring transaction involving the raise of $200 million in new capital, reduction of $500 million in net indebtedness, and extension of remaining existing funded debt maturities. The transaction was supported by substantially all of Service King’s funded debtholders in addition to the company’s equity sponsors*
- Represented of Navient Solutions LLC in securing dismissal of an involuntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding filed in the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Navient is a leader in education loan management and business processing solutions for education, healthcare, and government entities. The Bankruptcy Court dismissed the involuntary case just two weeks after it commenced*
- Represented PES Holdings, LLC in its Chapter 11 cases initiated in July 2019, four weeks after a catastrophic explosion at PES’s Girard Point refining complex that resulted in a permanent shutdown of PES’s refining operations. Following this event, PES worked quickly to obtain access to $100 million of new DIP financing from its term loan lenders and negotiated consensual cash collateral usage with its working capital lender to finance its Chapter 11 cases. In Chapter 11, PES pursued a competitive sale process for the refinery site and a claim under its $1.25 billion property insurance policy. The process culminated in a $225.5 million equity sale to Hilco Redevelopment Partners under a Chapter 11 plan. The Chapter 11 plan and sale were approved by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware in February 2020, less than 8 months after the catastrophic explosion*
- Represented Bruin E&P Partners, LLC and its subsidiaries in connection with their prepackaged Chapter 11 cases filed in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas. Bruin is an exploration and production company headquartered in Houston, Texas, with assets in the Williston Basin in North Dakota. Through their prepackaged Chapter 11 cases, Bruin eliminated over $840 million in funded debt obligations. Bruin filed its cases with a restructuring support agreement signed by 100% of its prepetition revolving lenders and over 67% of its senior noteholders that included a $230 million DIP commitment and an exit revolver with $230 million in aggregate commitments*
- Represented Technicolor S.A., a Paris-based global leader in content creation to distribution for Hollywood studios, independent filmmakers, music producers, and video game and software developers in its Chapter 15 proceeding pending before the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas. The Chapter 15 proceeding was part of a comprehensive restructuring strategy to raise €420 million in new financing and refinance Technicolor’s existing $477.8 million and €977 million of funded debt through an accelerated financial safeguard proceeding under French law*
- Represented Neiman Marcus Group LTD LLC and affiliates in their pre arranged Chapter 11 cases. The Company successfully completed its restructuring of over $5.5 billion of funded indebtedness in under five months. The restructuring plan was confirmed in September 2020, eliminated more than $4 billion of debt and more than $200 million of annual cash interest expense, and preserved more than 13,000 jobs. Neiman Marcus is the first retailer with over $5 billion of debt to reorganize under Chapter 11*
- Represented Whiting Petroleum Corporation and certain of its affiliates in connection with Whiting’s prearranged Chapter 11 cases in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas. Whiting is a Denver-based publicly traded independent exploration and production company with an oil focused asset base, employing approximately 500 employees and with funded debt of approximately $3.4 billion as of the Chapter 11 filing. Whiting entered into a restructuring support agreement with its unsecured noteholders, which contemplated a Chapter 11 plan that would provide 97% of the reorganized equity to noteholders and other holders of general unsecured claims, while still providing a recovery to existing equityholders in the form of the remaining 3% of reorganized equity*
*Matter handled prior to joining McDermott.
Credentials
Education
The University of Chicago Law School, JD, 2015
University of Notre Dame, BA, magna cum laude, 2012
Admissions
Illinois
