On May 15th JC Penney filed for bankruptcy protection in Corpus Christi Texas. Myself, like many others believed this bankruptcy never should have been filed. I organized a group of shareholders through the website jcpshareholders.com. With over 200 shareholders at the time, representing over 15M shares of the company, we filed a petition with the court (Docket# 319). We asked to have the case thrown out on bad faith, or in lieu of that, to appoint an official equity committee. We outlined our case to the court that this bankruptcy could have been avoided as there were out of court options available. We also showed why we believe the assets of the company were being undervalued in the filing.
On Tuesday June 9th we had our chance to present our case to the court. The debtor (JCP) and the committee representing the unsecured creditors both objected to our petition. Arguing we were not represented by other stakeholders at the table, Judge Jones ruled we’d be able to form an ad hoc committee. With this we’d be able to retain professionals to look out for the interests of all shareholders. We immediately formed the committee which consists of 4 long time JC Penney shareholders. On June 10th after an interview process the committee chose the firm of Okin/Adams as counsel to the ad hoc committee. This firm has many years of bankruptcy litigation experience and is familiar with Judge Jones from years of work in his court. Okin/Adams immediately got to work getting up to date on what’s already transpired in the case.
Our next course of business was to hire a financial advisor. On June 15th with the help of Okin/Adams we set up interviews with 3 candidates. After hours of interviews the committee voted unanimously on a choice. We are pleased to announce the ad hoc committee has retained CR3 Partners as our financial advisors. Renowned industry expert William Snyder and Dawn Ragan both have been working with the committee along with Okin/Adams. William Snyder was the CRO in the often talked about Pilgrim’s Pride bankruptcy case in which shareholders were told they were not going to see a recovery. Mr. Snyder was able to find value and include shareholders in the restructuring. The committee is excited to be working with William and Dawn.
Understand we are working hard every day on behalf of all shareholders in JC Penney. This has been a 7 day a week job for all of us involved. We all spend hours communicating through email, on the phone, or on conference calls every day. We now have over 400 shareholders signed up for email updates. Look out for these committee emails to stay up to date on information from the committee and the case.
Sincerely,
