Michael J. Fey
Chief Marketing Officer
Turnaround & Restructuring Advisory
Michael J. Fey is the Chief Marketing Officer at Ankura Trust Company with more than two decades of experience in the turnaround and restructuring industry. He has worked for large banks, private equity firms, and investment management firms, taking a constructive, proactive role in managing stressed and distressed assets to maximize returns on behalf of his client-investors and other constituents. His experience managing large and complex situations and transactions enables him to guide groups of lenders and investors toward consensus and then execute a plan for the optimal outcome.
- Experience
Before joining Ankura, Michael was a director at Barings, formerly Babson Capital, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Over nine years, he handled a range of distressed debt, equity, and warrants held across multiple portfolios, and represented the firm in the restructurings and turnarounds of US-based assets, working closely with management teams and boards of directors. He was also a member of a six-person team that managed three, stand-alone, global funds invested in special-situations assets.
Michael previously was a managing director at Patriarch Partners, a New York-based hedge fund specializing in distressed debt and equity holdings. He managed distressed debt and equity portfolios that were Patriarch’s direct holdings and oversaw the collateral management of senior secured and unsecured structured debt portfolios under for-fee management. He began his financial career at Bank of America as a workout specialist for small commercial loans. Michael was promoted to senior vice president and senior portfolio officer responsible for large commercial loans and other distressed assets, where he focused on risk mitigation, cost containment, and developing resolution strategies that addressed a myriad of legal and financial issues.
His professional experience includes:
- Restructuring, Publicly-traded Coal Company: Led a group of lenders taking legal action over the distressed exchange of bonds. Also negotiated the terms of corporate governance and the selection of a new board of directors. The restructuring ultimately resulted in a restatement of some debt and ownership of nearly all of the reorganized equity that, when sold, generated an average recovery of 110 percent across many Barings funds.
- Balance-Sheet Restructuring, Oilfield Services Company: Served as the lead member of the steering committee negotiating with the CEO-owner. Following detailed negotiations that weighed various structures related to tax complications, the capital structure was refinanced with a market-placed first lien and privately-placed second lien.
- Lender Takeover, Business Marketing Services Provider-Director Publisher: Led group of lenders who successfully pursued legal action to force the sponsor to transfer the business to the lenders. Subsequently assisted in selecting a management team and board to promote timely return of capital. Barings increased its investment during the process, resulting in outsized returns for the participating funds.