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Second Annual
Restructuring
Conference
Draws Strong
Industry
Attendance
"The real purpose of
restructuring is to fix a
company that is broken,"
said Robert Stevens "Steve"
Miller, chairman and
CEO of Delphi Corp., at
the 2nd Annual Wharton
Restructuring Conference
on February 10. "Saving
Chrysler felt like a higher
calling. If the company
failed, it would put a half-
million people out of work."
Miller, a sought-after
chief executive and corporate
director, has a strong
sense of the lives—as well
as dollars—at stake in his
work. After joining Chrysler
Corp. in 1979, Miller negotiated
with 400 lenders
and the U.S. government
as the architect of the Loan
Guarantee Act that bailed
out the troubled company.
The subtitle of the conference
was "Identifying
Opportunity in the Next
Wave of Restructuring"—and the theme of identifying
opportunity applied
equally well to the MBA
student organizers themselves.
While Wharton
has alumni strength
in this area, the MBA
Restructuring Club and
its conference are only two
years old. MBA students
specifically interested in
turnarounds and distressed
investing sought to fill a
gap in club offerings, and
drew their membership
from multiple disciplines—finance, accounting, law,
and management.
The relatively new student
conference found a receptive
audience. The event
was fully subscribed with
about 115 student/faculty
attendees, 19 speakers, and
156 investment bankers,
lawyers, and other restructuring
professionals—more
than twice the professional
turnout of the year before.
The conference theme is
uncommon among business
schools and drew a handful
of student attendees from as
far afield as Stanford.
This year's co-chairs—Ajay Bijoor, Borja
Madrid, and Will Rudat,
all WG'06—helped
organize panels to cover
operational turnarounds,
distressed investing, and
financial restructuring. In
addition, they enlisted two
illustrious keynote speakers
who share a name—Miller—but brought insight
from different sides of the
restructuring table.
While Steve Miller
spoke from the operational
perspective, the conference's
second keynote
speaker, Henry S. Miller,
chairman, managing director
and co-founder of
Miller Buckfire & Co.,
has represented debtors,
creditors, and other parties
in complex reorganizations
and chapter 11
matters for Calpine, Delta
Air Lines, Sunbeam, and
Dow Corning, to name
only a few among dozens
of clients.
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