StrikeAndYield crib sheet · information and education only

Restructuring

What happens when the debt cannot be paid: the negotiation, the court, and who ends up owning what.

The desk — 9 transaction types

Amend and extend	The maturity is pushed out and the terms are adjusted, without anybody writing anything off. The mildest transaction on this desk.
Court-supervised reorganisation	A company files for protection and keeps running. Enforcement stops on the day of the filing, which is the most powerful feature of the procedure.
Standstill	Creditors agree not to enforce while a plan is negotiated. It buys the only genuinely scarce thing here, which is time.
Wind-down	The business stops and the assets are sold for whatever they fetch. It is the alternative every restructuring is measured against.

Debt-for-equity swap	Creditors give up debt and receive the company instead. Where the value breaks decides who ends up owning it.
Distressed exchange	Bondholders are offered less than they are owed, and the alternative is not repayment. Same mechanics as liability management, with the choice removed.
Rescue financing	New money lent to a company already in difficulty, with priority over almost everybody. Whoever provides it usually sets the terms of the restructuring.

Restructuring plan	The court procedure that delivers a takeover, applied to creditors. A majority binds the rest — and a whole dissenting class can be crammed down.
Uptiering and drop-downs	A majority of lenders and the borrower use permissions in their own documents to improve their position at the expense of the rest.

Liquidity, not solvency — Companies fail when they run out of cash, not when the balance sheet says so
Where the debt sits in the structure — Position decides outcome more than headline amount does
What the documents permit — The contract written in good times governs the bad ones
Who holds the paper now — The original lenders are frequently gone
The availability of new money — Whoever funds the next months usually sets the terms
The forum, and who can be bound — A court can impose on dissenters what a negotiation cannot

The covenant breach, or the missed payment	The moment the balance of power changes
The standstill	Creditors agree not to enforce while a plan is negotiated
The information period	Creditors receive a business plan and test it
The vote, by class	Majorities are counted within classes, not across all creditors
Sanction, and then implementation	A court checks the process before the plan binds anybody

Counted from the same table each transaction page prints. Not a rating and not a ranking: there is deliberately no total.