Matteo Clarkson-Maciel is a member of the Liability Management & Special Situations team and part of the Banking & Specialty Finance and Restructuring & Insolvency Groups at Cassels. A commercially oriented advisor, Matteo’s practice focuses on out-of-court restructurings, liability management exercises, and distressed credit opportunities. Matteo is recognized for his expertise in providing creative but practical solutions to complex structuring issues involving complex credit documentation or organizational charts in restructurings and private credit financings.
Matteo has experience that spans the full range of leveraged finance and restructuring deals, including liability management, LBOs, alternative capital, debt capital market exchanges, distressed debt investments, court-driven restructurings, and pure-play wind-down bankruptcies. He is often retained in private credit, event-driven or distressed transactions. His experience often involved cross-border and multi-jurisdictional elements.
Dual-qualified in England & Wales and Ontario, Matteo previously practiced in the London offices of Kirkland & Ellis, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher, where he advised on several of Europe’s most noteworthy debt and restructuring transactions.
Matteo frequently advises on transactions involving distressed capital structures featuring private capital (syndicated or direct), high-yield bonds, and alternative credit. He is the go-to advisor for many in the UK and Europe looking for Canadian local counsel or Canadian expertise.
Matteo’s notable public experience has included:
Liability Management & Special Situations
- Various Canadian-based private credit funds on financing and liability management structuring.
- Various hedge funds and issuers in respect of high-yield note structuring for liability management transactions, including drop-downs, uptiers, asset sales, and consent solicitations.
- The Unsecured Creditor Committee for Scandinavian Airways on its Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, its European implementation and transaction structuring addressing European Union state subsidy issues.*
- An ad hoc group of bondholders to a UK-based pub group on their participation in a private credit drop-down asset disposition transaction and the pub group’s wider refinancing.*
- An ad hoc group of bondholders to French supermarket chain Casino through a consent solicitation and French Sauvegarde.*
Restructuring
- Hilco as liquidator on the Hudson’s Bay Company CCAA proceeding.
- Alvarez & Marsal in its role as court-appointed manager over syndicated collateral assets of the Pride Group Holdings companies.
- LoyaltyOne in its CCAA proceeding.
- Lifeways Group — an OMERS portfolio company and the UK’s largest care home provider — on a debt recapitalization and operational restructuring. The first English plan to cram-down creditor classes that did not participate in voting.*
- The insolvency practitioners of Global Brands Group on a 60+ jurisdiction restructuring and loan rationalization, culminating in the disposal of multiple material asset disposals of joint venture interests.*
- DeepOcean on the first cross-class cram down restructuring in England — winner of legal business deal of the year.*
- PizzaExpress on its operational and financial restructuring and partial debt for equity swap.*
- AllSaints on a English voluntary arrangement with the first CCAA recognition of a English plan to compromise landlord rights.*
- A Canadian airport kiosk retailer on an operational restructuring following COVID-19.*
Finance
- Various Canadian private credit lenders on collateral enforcements.
- A leading UK-based special situations investor on an asset-based financing to a BC-based HR marketing consultant.
- Goldman Sachs, Jefferies and Mizuho on Canadian law aspects of Outbrain’s $1.7bn bank-bond financing to acquire Teads.
- Banijay on a €2.2bn bank-bond financing to acquire Endemol Shine.*
- Various sponsors on financings for US-based energy projects.*
- Sponsors and lenders in various European football financings.*
- Lone Star Funds on the financing of its €1bn acquisition of Stark Group.*
- A composite cookware portfolio company on a US$147m senior credit facility refinancing syndicated by Canadian banks.*
Representations denoted with an asterisk were completed prior to joining Cassels.
