By Peg Brickley
Federal bankruptcy watchdogs say Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin failed to file a timely report of its ties to two of three investment funds that financed the bankruptcy of Aventine Renewable Energy Holdings.
The late disclosure should cost the financial-advisory firm half of the nearly $5 million it is seeking for work as Aventine’s financial adviser, U.S. trustee Roberta A. DeAngelis said in a filing Wednesday in the Wilmington, Del., bankruptcy court.
“We believe the firm’s actions were consistent with established bankruptcy rules and requirements,” Houlihan Lokey said Thursday in a statement released through spokesman Michael Utley.
Aventine was one of the many biofuels producers that piled into bankruptcy in recent years, a casualty of a squeeze in the capital markets and a decline in the price people were willing to pay for ethanol, a gasoline additive.
The company’s Chapter 11 case started off with excitement in the spring of 2009, as hedge funds connected to Whitebox Advisors LLC, Brigade Capital Management and Nomura Corporate Research and Asset Management jousted successfully with banks over the right to offer Chapter 11 financing.
I don't have faith in the Justice System!
