Almost an entire month after filing for Chapter 11, the remnants of Florida firm Ruden McCloysky are set to be sold to Fort Lauderdale-based Greenspoon Marder as part of a deal that returns $5.8 million to the creditors.
Sibling publication the Daily Review, reports that after a marathon of 14-hour negotiating session, an agreement was reached whereby the former Ruden partners will receive up to half of the now-defunt firm’s $10 million in account receivables.
The deal also called for Greenspoon Marder, who is the lone suitor, to increase its bid price for what’s left of Ruden from $5.6 million to $5.775 million. According to the DBR, most of the money will be used to repay Ruden’s largest creditor, Wells Fargo, which is owned $4.6 million. Ruden’s partners, who will remain unnamed with the firm until the bankruptcy filing on November 1 also agreed to waive their final paycheck in order to close the deal, the DPR reports.
When no other parties appeared at the scheduled auction on Monday to bid for Ruden’s remaining assets, it was left to Greenspoon Marder to proceed with its negotiated offer. Ruden’s bankruptcy lawyer, Paul Singerman of Miami-based Berger Singerman, said in court this week that at various times ten different firms had been in talks to try and acquire Ruden. The firm signed a few nondisclosure agreements with the six of those firms, including Cleveland-based Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff, according to the DBR.
Founded in 1959, Fort Lauderdale-based Ruden McLosky once boasted more than 200 lawyers. Yet, a steady stream of lateral departures caused the firm to suffer financially and close offices. The firm had vociferously denied that it would ever consider dissolving. It responded to the losses by shaking up its leadership and pursuing potential mergers with Benesch and eventually Greenspoon Marder.
The DBR reports that Singerman said in early 2010 that Ruden brought in legal consultancy Altman Weil to help expand the firm’s efforts to find a merger partner.
As a part of the final accord, Greenspoon Marder will assume almost $2 million in Ruden liabilities and take on roughly 140 lawyers and staff from the firm, which had almost 66 remaining lawyers at the time of its bankruptcy filing. If the deal had collapsed, then Ruden would have essentially gone out of business and its bankruptcy case would have proceeded to a liquidation of the firm’s remaining assets.
Bankruptcy partners R. Scott Shuker and Mariane Dorris of Orlando-based Latham, Shuker, Eden & Beaudine have advised Greenspoon Marder in connection with Ruden’s Chapter 11 case. Bankruptcy trustee Soneent Kapila oversaw the sale of Ruden to the new firm, which, with almost 140 attorneys, will now be the largest in Fort Lauderdale.