First Brands Says It Needs $600 Million or ‘It’s Game Over’

If Judge Rejects Financing Package, Company Says It Will Liquidate

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First Brands Group lawyers said the auto parts company needs access to its roughly $600 million of remaining bankruptcy financing or it will have to shut down immediately.

That request, made during a Nov. 6 court hearing in Houston, represents the rest of the $1.1 billion financing beingofferedby a group of First Brands lenders. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez last month authorized the company to make an initial $500 million draw on the loan, and a hearing to consider the current request will continue Nov. 7.

“We are talking high stakes, as high as they get,” company attorneySunny Singhsaid during the hearing. If the judge sides with holdout creditors and rejects the financing package, Singh said “it’s game over” and the firm will liquidate.



First Brands has struggled to overcome objections from creditors who accuse the firm of stripping them of their collateral rights in inventory and equipment without compensation, as the bankruptcy code typically requires.

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First Brands Group logo

Onset Financial Inc., one of the main creditors still fighting the proposed bankruptcy-funding package, accused First Brands in court papers of ignoring its collateral rights and urged Lopez to reject the funding request.

Attorneys for First Brands and competing creditors have already announced deals that would, in essence, put off for a later day potential fights over company invoices and other collateral pledged to lenders and firms that had deals with off-balance-sheet special-purpose vehicles. Lawyers said they’d continue negotiating settlements with key creditors before the hearing.

First Brands lawyers also provided more details about their investigation into the company’s past business practices and founder Patrick James — whom theyallegepilfered the firm. James has denied the allegation.

Restructuring advisers now guiding First Brands have made significant progress in understanding how the business actually operated under former management, company attorneyMatthew Barrsaid during the Nov. 6 hearing.

But he added that more work is needed to determine which creditors have liens or rights to certain collateral. Also, the business has been working with First Brands’ so-called factoring firms, which provide immediate cash to businesses by purchasing their receivables.

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First Brands — which owns Fram, Trico and Raybestos among other brands — has entered into a common-interest agreement with a committee of company creditors as part of an ongoing investigation by an independent board committee, Barr said.

Advisers have established a whistleblower hotline, collected more than 7 million documents, interviewed current and former employees and are pursuing records from more than 600 banks, he said. The company has also collected mobile phones, computers and other electronics for forensic imaging and placed “numerous litigation holds” on current and former employees, according to Barr.

He went on to say that a review of First Brands’ operations, which employ roughly 26,000 workers globally, should be completed by the end of January. Barr said the effort will determine what units should be sold or shut down — including a German plastics business that filed forinsolvencythere earlier this week.

Regarding support for businesses outside the U.S., Barr said the company was in discussions with Banco Santander SA for Ultinon and with UBS Group for Horizon Global.

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Spokespeople for Santander and UBS declined to comment.

First Brands is taking new orders and processing existing ones, Barr said. The company also expects to have greater inventory at the end of this month than it did in October, according to Barr. He said that First Brands’ interim CEO, Charles Moore, has been regularly meeting with the company’s largest customers and negotiated trade agreements to continue receiving goods, services and payments.

The case is First Brands Group LLC, number 25-90399, in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.