EP 14: Why the UK Restructuring Plan Is Winning with Peter Newman

Julie Miecamp opens with a simple observation: cross-border restructuring used to be a niche. A small group who knew which tools worked, which were theoretical, and how to close before the asset stopped being worth fighting over. It's not a niche anymore. She introduces Omar Vaishnavi's conversation with Peter Newman, Partner and Head of European Corporate Restructuring at Skadden, a lawyer with a simple view of what restructuring actually is: a company has too much debt, your job is to fix it, everything else is noise.

The conversation opens with how Part 26A has moved from contested novelty to a reliable instrument, with courts now applying two distinct fairness frameworks to value allocation (12:34). Newman explains why Chapter 11 remains the gold standard but isn't always the right vehicle, and how the UK restructuring plan's surgical approach made it the value-maximizing path for New Fortress Energy (17:22).

OceanRig anchors the episode's practical core (19:09): a cross-border restructuring Newman and Vaishnavi worked from opposite sides of the table, which succeeded because the deal moved faster than the dispute could. The teaching thread runs through the second half, with Newman drawing on seven years co-teaching at NYU to explain why the most powerful insight in restructuring is also the simplest (29:37). The episode closes with rapid-fire takes on the tools worth watching and what African Minerals taught him about the limits of a strong legal position (34:33).

Hosted by Julie Miecamp
Guest Interviewer: Omar Vaishnavi, Head of Americas Coverage, Octus
Guest: Peter Newman, Partner and Head of European Corporate Restructuring, Skadden
Produced and Edited by Tanya Hubbard
A Production of The Octus Podcast Network