Wharton Restructuring and Distressed Investing Conference 2013

Lee Buchheit

Partner, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton

Mr. Buchheit will discuss the options currently facing policy makers in response to the Eurozone debt crisis. He will set these in the historical context of other sovereign debt crises of the last thirty years and will offer some predictions for the near- to medium-term future.

Lee C. Buchheit is a partner based in the New York office of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP.

Mr. Buchheit’s practice focuses on international and corporate transactions, including Eurocurrency financial transactions, sovereign debt management, privatization and project finance.

Mr. Buchheit is the author of two books in the field of international law and more than 40 articles on professional matters.  He has served as an adjunct professor at the School for International and Public Affairs of Columbia University (1994-97), as a visiting professor at Chuo University in Japan (1997-98), as a Lecturer on Law at the Harvard Law School (2000), as a Visiting Lecturer in Law at the Yale Law School (2005), as an adjunct professor of law at Duke University Law School (2006-07), and as an adjunct professor of law at New York University Law School (2008).  Mr. Buchheit is a Visiting Professorial Fellow in the Centre for Commercial Law Studies at the University of London.

Mr. Buchheit was recognized by the Financial Times’ U.S. Innovative Lawyers Report as one of the ten most Innovative Individuals of 2012 for his work on the Greek debt restructuring. In 2010, Mr. Buchheit received International Financial Law Review's inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to international finance. He is also recognized by The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers, IFLR 1000: The Guide to the World's Leading Financial Law Firms, The Legal 500 U.S. and the Legal Media Group Guides as one of the best banking lawyers in the United States.

Mr. Buchheit joined the firm in 1976 and became a partner in 1984.  From 1987 to 1990, he was resident in the Hong Kong office; from 1979 to 1982, in the London office; and from 1976 to 1979, in the Washington, D.C. office.  He received a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1975 and a Diploma in International Law from Cambridge University in 1976.  Mr. Buchheit received an undergraduate degree from Middlebury College.

Mr. Buchheit is a member of the Bars in New York and Pennsylvania.

Steven Tananbaum

Managing Partner & Chief Investment Officer, GoldenTree Asset Management

Mr. Tananbaum will discuss where we are in the distressed cycle and share his views on identifying and investing in distressed situations in the current environment.

Beginning in early 2000, Steve Tananbaum founded and was instrumental in the building of GoldenTree Asset Management into an organization which is known for its bottom up value investment process, focused on the credit markets.  GoldenTree has produced strong competitive returns broadly across product lines since its inception.  Also known for its partnership culture, GoldenTree has grown to an organization of 25 partners, 185 employees and approximately $17 billion of assets under management.  Prior to forming GoldenTree, Mr. Tananbaum joined MacKay Shields as an investment specialist in 1989 and became head of their high yield group in 1991. MacKay Shields’ high yield mutual funds were rated in the top 5% by Lipper during the period June 1, 1991 through December 31, 1999. In 1997, Mr. Tananbaum formed and was lead portfolio manager of the firm’s hedge fund area. Prior to joining MacKay Shields, Mr. Tananbaum worked primarily on high yield and merger & acquisition transactions in the corporate finance department of Kidder, Peabody & Co.  Mr. Tananbaum is a graduate of Vassar College (B.A. in Economics) and is a CFA charterholder. He serves as a Trustee of Vassar College and is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Frederick Henderson

Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, SunCoke Energy

Former President & Chief Executive Officer, General Motors

As SunCoke Energy’s Chairman and CEO, Frederick A. “Fritz” Henderson leads the largest independent producer of metallurgical coke in the Americas with nearly 50 years of experience supplying coke to the integrated steel industry. With sales of approximately $2 billion and operations in the U.S. and Brazil, SunCoke’s advanced heat recovery cokemaking process produces high-quality coke for use in steelmaking, captures waste heat for derivative energy resale, and meets or exceeds environmental standards.

Mr. Henderson joined Sunoco Inc.’s leadership team in August of 2010 to lead SunCoke’s separation from the parent company. In late July of 2011, he led SunCoke through an initial public offering which raised both equity and debt for the company, further positioning the company for success after full separation from parent Sunoco. Under his leadership, he has built a new management team, set a strategic foundation and operating plan for domestic and global growth and positively resolved litigation with ArcelorMittal.

Prior to joining SunCoke, Mr. Henderson served as President and Chief Executive Officer of General Motors. During his tenure in 2009, he stabilized operations, reorganized management and developed a restructuring plan that contributed to GM’s emerging from U.S. bankruptcy proceeding in an unprecedented 40-day period which reduced debt and other obligations in excess of $100 billion.

Before his appointment to President and CEO of GM, he served as GM’s President and Chief Operating Officer. He began his career with the global automaker in 1984 when he joined GM’s corporate treasury office. In 1991, he became Group Vice President of Finance for General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC) and later worked with GM’s global component operations, before being appointed Vice President and Managing Director of GM do Brasil in 1997. In 2000, he was appointed Group Vice President and Regional President of GM Latin America, Africa and Middle East, before becoming Regional President of GM Asia Pacific in 2002, where he successfully expanded operations in Korea and China. In 2004, Mr. Henderson was appointed Chairman of GM Europe and became GM’s Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer in 2006.

As a business leader, Mr. Henderson serves on the Board of Directors of Compuware Corporation and is a trustee of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. He is also a member of The Commercial Club of Chicago and The Economic Club of Chicago.

An expert in emerging markets, Mr. Henderson is the recent recipient of the 2011 Association of Iron and Steel Technology (AIST) Father William T. Hogan, S.J. Lecture Award for his keynote address on growth opportunities for the U.S. Steel Industry.

He received his Bachelor of Business Administration degree with high distinction from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He earned his Master of Business Administration degree with high distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Business in Boston, where he was elected a George F. Baker Scholar.

Edward I. Altman

Max L. Heine Professor of Finance, The Stern School of Business, New York University

Professor Altman will analyze the current condition of global credit markets and present his outlook for corporate and sovereign debt markets. He will provide his one year outlook for the default rate of U.S. High-Yield Bonds and leveraged loans. For sovereign markets, he will update and expand on his new approach for assessing sovereign risk bond defaults. Finally, Dr. Altman will assess the state and outlook for global credit markets using his famed mortality rate analytics as well as two market based techiques and then explore the implications for restructuring professionals.

Edward I. Altman is the Max L. Heine Professor of Finance at the Stern School of Business, New York University. He is the Director of Research in Credit and Debt Markets at the NYU Salomon Center for the Study of Financial Institutions. Prior to serving in his present position, Professor Altman chaired the Stern School’s MBA Program for 12 years. He has been a visiting Professor at the Hautes Etudes Commerciales and Universite de Paris-Dauphine in France, at the Pontificia Catolica Universidade in Rio de Janeiro, at the Australian Graduate School of Management and MacQuarie in Sydney, University of Western Australia in Perth, Luigi Bocconi University in Milan and CEMFI in Madrid. Dr. Altman was named to the Max L. Heine endowed professorship at Stern in 1988.

Dr. Altman has an international reputation as an expert on corporate bankruptcy, high yield bonds, distressed debt and credit risk analysis. He was named Laureate 1984 by the Hautes Etudes Commerciales Foundation in Paris for his accumulated works on corporate distress prediction models and procedures for firm financial rehabilitation and awarded the Graham & Dodd Scroll for 1985 by the Financial Analysts Federation for his work on Default Rates on High Yield Corporate Debt and was named “Profesor Honorario” by the University of Buenos Aires in 1996. He is currently an advisor to the Centrale dei Bilanci in Italy and to several foreign central banks. Professor Altman is also the Chairman of the Academic Advisory Council of the Turnaround Management Association. He received his MBA and Ph.D. in Finance from the University of California, Los Angeles. He was inducted into the Fixed Income Analysts Society Hall of Fame in 2001, President of the Financial Management Association (2003) and a FMA Fellow in 2004 and was amongst the inaugural inductees into the Turnaround Management Association’s Hall of Fame in 2008. In 2005, Prof. Altman was named one of the “100 Most Influential People in Finance” by the Treasury & Risk Management magazine. He also received an Honorary Doctorate from Lund University, Sweden in May 2011.

Professor Altman was one of the founders and an Executive Editor of the international publication, the Journal of Banking and Finance and Advisory Editor of a publisher series, the John Wiley Frontiers in Finance Series. He has published or edited two-dozen books and over 150 articles in scholarly finance, accounting and economic journals. He was the editor of the Handbook of Corporate Finance and the Handbook of Financial Markets and Institutions and the author of a number of recent books, including his most recent works on Bankruptcy, Credit Risk and High Yield Junk Bonds (2002), Recovery Risk (2005), Corporate Financial Distress & Bankruptcy (3rd ed., 2006) and Managing Credit Risk (2nd ed. 2008). His work has appeared in many languages including French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish.

Dr. Altman's primary areas of research include bankruptcy analysis and prediction, credit and lending policies, risk management and regulation in banking, corporate finance and capital markets. He has been a consultant to several government agencies, major financial and accounting institutions and industrial companies and has lectured to executives in North America, South America, Europe, Australia-New Zealand, Asia and Africa. He has testified before the U.S. Congress, the New York State Senate and several other government and regulatory organizations and is a Director and a member of the Advisory Board of a number of corporate, publishing, academic and financial institutions. He has been Chairman of the Academic Council of the Turnaround Management Association since 2002.

Dr. Altman is Chairman Emeritus and a member of the Board of Trustees of the InterSchool Orchestras of New York and a founding member of the Board of Trustees of the Museum of American Finance.

Download Edward I. Altman's Keynote Presentation (PDF - 2.9MB) »