Restructuring

Your client borrowed a ton of money. $300 million, in fact, to build railroad loader robots, which she sprinkled all along the railroad routes, believing that the next union strike would trigger the beginning of the robot revolution. She already had a business managing and storing railroad cargo, which made $50 million a year in cash flow. But the chastened union rep went back to his constituency and said, "Um, if we don't play ball, we're all out of work."

To the owner's shock and horror, the union took the first contract offered, and her robots were made suddenly obsolete. That $300 million still had to be paid back, as the robots rusted and, well, basically, since she had pledged the assets of the company to the banks when she borrowed their $300 million, with no cash flow from robot unpacking, she was bankrupt. Or at least she'd have to massively restructure those loans from 8%, due in 8 years, to give the banks, say, half of her common stock or equity or ownership in the company, rewrite the loans so that they had zero interest for 2 years, and then 6% interest for a while, and 10% interest starting in 5 years, with a new 20-year payback period to the loan.

That's what restructuring is all about. When companies stumble, there are huge banking fees for investment bankers to kind of "clean up the mess," and also investment opportunities for their private funds. Good work if you can get it. It's one of the highest paying careers (that are legal) in the world.