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On this page, you can explore some of our recent work to start learning about restructuring and studying these key transactions.
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February 2026 - Empire Today: Floored by the Market
This writeup explores Empire Today’s shop-at-home business model and 67-year corporate history, before detailing the COVID-era tailwinds that underpinned the Charlesbank buyout and the rapid reversal that followed. We’ll then break down the mechanics of the November 2024 LME, including our estimates of the exact exchange economics. Finally, we’ll analyze the company’s post-LME deterioration and explore potential outcomes for a second restructuring.
August 2025 - Bird Global: From VC Unicorn to Chapter 11
This writeup explores Bird’s rapid rise to fame and enormous valuations, along with the issues that plagued its business model, including injuries, municipal lawsuits, and vandalism. We’ll also dive into the unit economics behind micromobility ridesharing to diagnose where Bird faltered. Additionally, we’ll examine Apollo’s unique form of scooter financing and how the firm leveraged Bird’s desperate need for outside capital in a Chapter 11 loan-to-own strategy. We’ll conclude with Apollo and the lender group’s outstanding turnaround of Bird and briefly compare it to its competitor, Lime.
May 2025 - (Trash)io: The Stumble from Scale and Short-Term Solutions
In this writeup, we will examine one of Amazon’s most (initially) successful companies, Thrasio, and how the company’s rapid expansion via roll-ups, over-dependence on Amazon as a platform, and reliance on short-term solutions led to the aggregator’s downfall in 2024. We will use Thrasio as an opportunity to learn about challenges faced specifically by the e-commerce industry, and how venture-scale businesses can depress their runway despite aggressive funding.
January 2025 - Red Lobster, a Case of Predatory Private Equity (Not Shrimp)
In recent years, restructuring has only become more complex. Whether it be out-of-court LMEs, or complex and lengthy in-court negotiations and litigation, we often see restructuring have the goal of ‘giving breathing room’ to a company to figure out their problems, rather than completely solving their problems in the restructuring itself.
The case of Red Lobster is fascinating; it incorporates all of these complex elements - including RSA’s, credit bids, and in-court litigation - but has been able to complete a restructuring in the span of a few months while successfully resolving many of the company’s issues and truly providing a pathway for a brighter future.
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