Avaya: Reorg Plan Still in the HopperAvaya: Reorg Plan Still in the Hopper
Company misses its March deadline as it continues discussions with creditors.
April 4, 2017
March has come and gone, and with it Avaya's chance to meet its expectation of filing a reorganization plan by month's end.
Such had been the goal, as the company has stated publically and John Sullivan, Avaya VP and corporate treasurer, noted in a Feb. 28 No Jitter post, "Avaya: Turning the Page on Chapter 11." As Sullivan wrote at the time, "We expect to file a plan of reorganization in March. We will also be engaging creditor groups to build support for the plan to enable us to complete our balance sheet restructuring as soon as possible."
I'd been told late last week that the company still aimed to file its reorganization plan by March 31... or in early April. The official word out of Avaya today is that the filing should come in the "very near future."
Its official statement reads:
Avaya remains in ongoing dialogue with our creditors and other stakeholders as part of the financial restructuring process. We have prepared a Plan of Reorganization and related Disclosure Statement, supported by a significant body of work and analysis, and have decided to briefly continue discussions with our creditors before formally filing these documents with the Court. We believe taking this additional time will be helpful as our goal remains to build consensus around a swift emergence from chapter 11. Our stakeholders' goals are aligned with the company's; namely, completing our balance sheet restructuring as quickly as reasonably possible.
The question is, "Just how long will it delay the filing?" Industry watchers on No Jitter and elsewhere have suggested that the longer Avaya takes to file, the less likely it is to emerge as the recognizable leaner, meaner player it wants to be.
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