THE FIRST official objection to the hurried timetable in place from day one of the RG Steel bankruptcy case is the focal point of a motion filed Tuesday, requesting a broad three-week adjustment be established.
Objecting to the "fire sale" nature of the timetable now in place in the federal bankruptcy case centering on bankrupt RG Steel and the sale of virtually all its holdings, members of the Official Committee for Unsecured Creditors say a three-week extension should be added to the initial timetable so they can begin to do the job they were convened by the court to do only a week ago.
But according to the committee, neither RG Steel nor the first-tier lenders seem interested in seeing an extension made to the proposed sale timetable of the complex reorganization case.
Built into the proposed delay would be a weekly briefing responsibility to the court.
The requested three-week delay in the hearing would put the matter on the docket of the next omnibus hearing already set for July 10 at 10 a.m., while doing no harm to the overall bankruptcy standing of RG.
According to the committee's court entry the actions to delay the timetable by three weeks, if approved, would help prevent additional potential financial losses.
On Tuesday, the committee transmitted a term sheet to the debtors and lenders. The debtors and the first lien holders have refused to agree to continue today's hearing on the matter, according to members of the committee.
The points the committee highlighted in the motion as being key to their argument for the delay include: it needs additional time to get up and running as a committee; will have the opportunity to take discovery of key issues in the case "as every committee does just after its formation."
Besides the usual due diligence and investigation, the committee here must take discovery of key players and professionals to understand and evaluate the sale process, the linchpin of this Chapter 11 case, stated the committee in its motion.
"Ordinarily debtors and lenders in emergent sale cases understand the key and valuable role played by an official committee and therefore they grant a reasonable request for an adjournment; here, the players have been unwilling in the case of the lenders and unable in the case of the debtors - because of debtor in possession constraints - to agree. The committee therefore was forced to file this motion to adjourn to ask the court for more time," noted the court entry from Tuesday.
Loccisano may be reached at kloccisano@gmail.com
