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In re GAC Storage El Monte, LLC, et al.

11 B 40944 (jointly administered)

In this memorandum opinion, the Court denied confirmation of the Debtor’s Third Amended Plan of Reorganization. The Court noted that to satisfy the Bankruptcy Code’s requirement that the Debtor’s Plan be fair and equitable, a plan must propose an interest rate adequate to assure the realization of the Bank’s claim. In this case, the Court determined that the interest rate advanced by the Debtor did not sufficiently capture the risk that the Debtor would not satisfy the Bank’s claim. The Court also determined that the Plan was not feasible because the Debtor failed to prove that the property would increase in value enough to give the Debtor sufficient equity to facilitate refinancing at the end of 7 years to fund a balloon payment to the Bank. Also, relying on the Seventh Circuit’s decision in In re Castleton Plaza, LP, No. 12-2639, 2013 WL 537269, and Bankruptcy Code Section 101(31)(B), the Court held that the nature of the plan warrants application of the absolute priority rule as the plan gave the Debtor’s insider preferential access to an investment opportunity in the Reorganized Debtor without allowing others to compete for that opportunity. The Court also granted the Bank’s request for relief from the automatic stay because the Debtor failed to show that there is a reasonable possibility of a successful reorganization.

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Tuesday, March 19, 2013