Power Industry: What's Next?

Morgan Suckow is a senior managing director of Guggenheim Securities in New York and has extensive experience representing companies in connection with corporate recapitalizations and reorganizations across a wide range of industries, as well as in advising clients on distressed financing and M&A transactions. In addition, he has significant expertise representing creditors and other key stakeholders in restructuring transactions.

Over the course of his career, Mr. Suckow has represented clients in connection with the restructuring of more than $100 billion in debt and the sourcing of nearly $20 billion in financing, including the $2 billion Kmart DIP facility and the $5 billion Calpine DIP facility, each the largest in history at the time. Additionally, several of his transactions have been recognized by leading industry organizations, including Furniture Brands (M&A Advisor Consumer and Retail Deal of the Year, 2014), AMF Bowling (Turnaround Atlas Awards Mid-Market Restructuring of the Year, 2013) and Calpine (Turnaround Management Association Mega Transaction of the Year, 2008).

Prior to joining Guggenheim, Mr. Suckow spent 15 years in the restructuring group at Miller Buckfire and its predecessors, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and Wasserstein Perella, most recently as a managing director.

He received his B.S.E. in electrical engineering and computer science from Duke University.

Steven N. Serajeddini is a partner in the Restructuring Group of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, based in Chicago.

He advises companies, private-equity sponsors, distressed-debt funds, ad hoc committees, and other investors with respect to public, private and portfolio companies in financial distress, including liability management transactions, amend and extend transactions, refinancings, out-of-court exchanges and restructurings, and bankruptcy and insolvency proceedings. Mr. Serajeddini has been involved in some of the largest and most complex corporate restructurings of all time. He also advises boards of directors and senior management of distressed companies regarding fiduciary duties and corporate governance.

Mr. Serajeddini has expertise across a broad range of industries, including energy, oil and gas, power, retail, telecommunications, health care, manufacturing, hospitality, real estate, publishing, media and pharmaceutical. He is a member of ABI and the Turnaround Management Association, and co-authored ABI’s A Practitioner’s Guide to Prepackaged Bankruptcy (2011).

Mr. Serajeddini received his B.A.S. in computer engineering from the University of Waterloo, his M.A. in applied economics from the University of Michigan, and his J.D. cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School, where he was an article editor for the Michigan Law Review and a semifinalist in the Henry M. Campbell Moot Court Competition.

Judah Rose is a senior vice president and managing director with ICF, Inc., a global consulting services company in Fairfax, Va. He has 30 years of experience in the energy industry with clients such as electric utilities, financial institutions, law firms, government agencies, fuel companies and independent power producers (IPPs). Mr. Rose is an ICF Distinguished Consultant, an honorary title given to three of ICF’s 4,500 employees. He has served on the ICF board of directors as the management shareholder representative.

Mr. Rose has supported the financing of tens of billions of dollars of new and existing power plants and is a frequent counselor to the financial community. He provides expert testimony and litigation support, has addressed approximately 100 major energy conferences, and has authored numerous articles.

Mr. Rose received his B.S. in economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his M.P.P. from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Scott D. Cousins is a director with Bayard, P.A. in Wilmington, Del., and has more than 25 years of experience in the restructuring field. He has participated in many of the largest and most complicated business reorganizations, liquidations and distressed sales and acquisitions in Delaware’s state and federal courts. He is also experienced in out-of-court restructurings and workouts and has appeared in many bankruptcy jurisdictions across the country. Mr. Cousins has experience in commercial transactions as a result of his role as in-house counsel for two large energy-related companies.

From 2005 to early 2009, he served as general counsel of NextEra Energy Resources LLC, a clean energy company and one of the largest competitive energy suppliers in North America. At NextEra, he oversaw all legal aspects of the company’s activities.

Before entering private practice in 1996, Mr. Cousins worked in the corporate legal department for The Columbia Gas System, Inc., where he focused primarily on the chapter 11 bankruptcy cases of Columbia and its subsidiary, Columbia Gas Transmission Corporation, until they successfully emerged from bankruptcy protection in 1995. He is AV-Peer Review-rated by Martindale-Hubbell and is a published author and frequent speaker on issues and developments in bankruptcy and insolvency law.

Mr. Cousins has been recognized by Chambers USA from 2004-06 and 2010-17 as a leader in bankruptcy and restructuring, and since 2006 has been named in The Best Lawyers in America as one of the foremost practitioners in his field. He has also been included in The International Who’s Who of Insolvency & Restructuring Lawyers since 2011. Mr. Cousins has been recognized by Super Lawyers magazine as a Delaware Super Lawyer in business bankruptcy each year since 2013, and he authored a chapter on assets dispositions and acquisitions in conjunction with prepackaged plans of reorganization in Bankruptcy Business Acquisitions (ABI 1998).

He received his B.S. in 1989 from Stockton State College, his M.B.A. from Widener University School of Management in 1992 and his J.D. from Widener University Delaware Law School in 1992.