I believe that the Debtors were willing to make concessions for allowing another party to bid. i'm not saying that there was money left on the table, but without support of a bidder with cash ready to go, it would not hold with the court. I've seen plenty of shame 363 processes, but unless you have cash to back that existing bids are undervaluing assets, you cannot hold up a process or even argue that the Debtors are sandbagging value. Creditor Committees fight these issues with success all the time, but only if they have an alternate bidder. What was missing here was an alternate bidder. That not only takes away an argument to fight the sale hearing, but any argument that the debtors are mismanaging the case and need oversight by an EC. Without an alternative biddee (again, cash in hand), the Debtors will say "Your honor, we ask the ad hoc to show us a bidder. We would love to sell Hyperion for more money but we cannot find a better bidder. if the ad hoc has no better bidder, why are they objecting now? they were aware of bid deadlines that expired 8 weeks ago ..."
a fair argument is why the ad hoc didn't pursue other bidders. I cannot comment as i don't know the terms of the engagement letter btwn the ad hoc and its professionals. might be reasonable to conclude, however, that finding a topping bid for $1 million is a lot of work for a professional with bigger matters at hand (e.g. getting a ec formed).
AI
