John Stark, a longtime creditor committee presence as head of distressed investments at PPM America, has started Water Tower Capital LLC to advise creditor committee's with their workout plans. Stark, whose firm just received its first mandate when it was appointed as an adviser to the workout group of Finova corp., says that the outlook for distressed advisory has never been brighter, given the amount of creditors that have suddenly found themselves involved in bankruptcy proceedings. One distressed investor who has worked with Stark before reasons that with the increased defaults in telecom and utilities, two areas where investors were explicitly not making distressed bets, a premium will be placed on having a creditor committee adviser with no stake in the resolution.
Distressed Maven Starts Own Firm