CIT Files Bankruptcy; U.S. Unlikely to Recoup Money
By Tiffany Kary, Dawn McCarty and Lester Pimentel
Nov. 1 (Bloomberg) -- CIT Group Inc., a 101-year-old commercial lender, filed for bankruptcy to cut $10 billion in debt after the credit crunch dried up its funding and a U.S. bailout and debt exchange offer failed.
CIT listed $71 billion in assets and $64.9 billion in debt in a Chapter 11 filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. The U.S. Treasury Department said the government probably won’t recover much, if any, of the $2.3 billion in taxpayer money that went to CIT.
The bankruptcy “will allow CIT to continue to provide funding to our small business and middle-market customers,” said Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Peek in a statement.
CIT, which filed the fifth-largest bankruptcy by assets, said it plans to exit quickly due to support from bondholders, who voted in favor of a so-called prepackaged plan. None of CIT’s operating subsidiaries, including Utah-based CIT Bank, were included in the filing, and operations will proceed as normal, CIT said in a statement.
CIT has $1 billion from investor Carl Icahn to fund operations while it reorganizes. The credit line, to be drawn on until Dec. 31, will be a so-called debtor-in-possession loan. It also expanded its $3 billion credit facility by another $4.5 billion on Oct. 28.
Debt Holders Say No
The company had asked bondholders to exchange $30 billion in debt for new securities and equity. Icahn made a competing offer. After CIT’s offer expired at midnight on Oct. 29, the company said it was tallying 150,000 ballots.
Debt holders rejected the exchange offer, with 90 percent of holders who voted opting for the company’s prepackaged bankruptcy plan.
The failure of CIT’s bank-holding company is the biggest measured by assets since regulators seized Washington Mutual banking unit in September 2008. Washington Mutual and IndyMac Bancorp Inc. are other banks with unmanageable debt that sought court protection to wind down their holding companies. Both put their retail banking units in the hands of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. CIT became a bank-holding company in December to qualify for a Treasury bailout.
“Disruptions in the credit markets coupled with the global economic deterioration that began in 2007, and downgrades in the company’s credit ratings” hindered CIT’s ability to obtain financing, according to an Oct. 2 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Bank of America
According to the petition, CIT’s largest unsecured claim holders were Bank of America Corp., as collateral agent for a $7.5 billion claim, and Bank of New York Mellon Corp., as a trustee for retail bonds with a claim of $3.2 billion. Canadian senior unsecured notes have a claim for $2.1 billion, and Citigroup Inc. also has a $2.1 billion claim as an administrative agent to bank debt due 2010.
CIT had said in its Oct. 2 outline of a prepackaged plan that it would give most noteholders new notes at 70 cents on the dollar plus new common stock, compared with the range of 70 cents to 90 cents and new preferred stock proposed in the exchange offer.
CIT also said it would try to emerge from bankruptcy two months from the date of its filing.
‘Free-Fall Bankruptcy’
CIT, which reported $3 billion of losses in the past eight quarters, received $2.3 billion from the U.S. Treasury on Dec. 31 when it purchased preferred stock and warrants. The company wasn’t given access to the FDIC’s debt-guarantee program.
“We will be following developments very closely with an eye towards protecting taxpayers during the bankruptcy proceeding,” Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams said today in an e-mailed statement. “But as the company’s disclosure on the prepackaged bankruptcy makes clear, with debt holders receiving less than face value of their instruments, recovery to preferred and common equity holders will be minimal.”
CIT said the debt exchange would have given it a quicker reorganization without the cost of defaulting on loans, unwinding derivatives or fees for bankruptcy lawyers.
Icahn, who said he’s the largest bondholder with $2 billion of debt, had initially sought to block CIT’s prepackaged plan, saying bondholders would get a better deal if the company went into a “free-fall bankruptcy.” He offered to buy bonds for 60 cents on the dollar.
Dunkin’ Brands
The company tried to stave off bankruptcy with a $3 billion rescue loan from bondholders in July to see it through a cash crunch. Bondholders stepped in after CIT failed to get another U.S. government bailout or enough loans to permit an out-of- court restructuring.
CIT’s $3 billion facility, arranged by Barclays Plc, included investors led by Newport Beach, California-based Pacific Investment Management Co. and Centerbridge Partners LP in New York. Also providing financing were Oaktree Capital Management LLC and Capital Research & Management Co., both in Los Angeles, and Boston-based hedge fund Baupost Group LLC and Silver Point Capital LP in Greenwich, Connecticut.
“CIT’s liens against its customers’ assets will make it very difficult for them to procure replacement financing without paying off everything owed to CIT,” said Martin J. Bienenstock, a bankruptcy lawyer with Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP in New York. “This could give new meaning to headache and chaos.”
The lender funds about 1 million businesses such as Dunkin’ Brands Inc. in Canton, Massachusetts, and Eddie Bauer Holdings Inc., the bankrupt clothing chain in Bellevue, Washington.
Smaller Borrowers
CIT has said it’s the third-largest U.S. railcar-leasing firm and the world’s third-biggest aircraft financier. It also finances trade in Canada, Europe and Asia by lending to small manufacturers that sell to retailers.
CIT accounts for about 70 percent of all short-term U.S. financing known as factoring, worth about $40 billion a year, according to Ray Ecke, president of Credit Management Resource in Oakland, New Jersey.
In factoring, suppliers and manufacturers sell payments owed for goods and services to companies such as CIT because they need immediate cash. The process gives vendors money to produce goods retailers have ordered. Retailers typically make payments within 90 days. After they do, a factor keeps a fee based on a percentage of the total order.
Subprime Mortgages
“Short term, it’s going to cause some difficulties for startups and smaller borrowers,” said Jean Everett, a partner at Hiscock & Barclay focusing on financial institutions and lending. “CIT lent across so many sectors it’s sort of difficult to predict how it’ll affect each sector.”
CIT fell 23 cents to 72 cents in New York Stock Exchange composite trading on Oct. 30. The stock is down 84 percent year to date.
Peek, 62, who joined CIT in 2003 after failing to land the top job at Merrill Lynch & Co., pushed the lender into subprime mortgages and student loans to pump up growth.
Assets at CIT jumped 77 percent from 2004 to the end of 2007 as it acquired companies that focused on vendor finance, education lending and medical, construction and industrial equipment loans. Net income surpassed $1 billion in 2006, a 39 percent increase over two years.
CIT’s $500 million of notes due Nov. 3 fell to 68 cents on the dollar as of Oct. 29 from 80 cents at the beginning of the month, according to Trace, the bond-price reporting system of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
CIT’s bankruptcy filing was made by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, which the company said on July 11 it had hired as a legal adviser.
The case is In re CIT Group Inc., 09-16565; U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan.)
