SIT­U­A­TION

• The Com­pa­ny is a spe­cial­ty man­u­fac­tur­er of renew­able jet fuel from used cook­ing oil and inter­me­di­ate chem­i­cals sold to resin producers.
• After prof­itable years in 2021 and 2022, the Com­pa­ny encoun­tered major head­winds in the first three quar­ters of 2023 as a result of increased com­pe­ti­tion, a decrease in demand and dif­fi­cul­ty sourc­ing feed­stock at accept­able terms.
• Based on its pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ence with the Com­pa­ny, Chi­ron was engaged in August 2023 as Invest­ment Banker and Finan­cial Advisor
• After a thor­ough review, Chi­ron deter­mined that Chap­ter 11 was the best alter­na­tive to reduce finan­cial pres­sure on the Com­pa­ny and give it the breath­ing room need­ed to reor­ga­nize and restruc­ture. The Com­pa­ny filed for Chap­ter 11 pro­tec­tion in Sep­tem­ber 2023.

OUT­COME

• Chi­ron worked to bet­ter man­age cash on a week­ly basis, iden­ti­fy­ing cost-cut­ting effi­cien­cies and pri­or­i­tiz­ing pay­ments to crit­i­cal vendors.
• Lever­ag­ing its exten­sive net­work, Chi­ron ini­ti­at­ed a search for debtor-in-pos­ses­sion (“DIP”) financ­ing and reached out to 18+ poten­tial lenders, many of which Chi­ron had worked with in the past.
• Chi­ron was ulti­mate­ly suc­cess­ful in secur­ing total DIP financ­ing com­mit­ments of $17.5 mil­lion from two lenders (one of which was the Company’s lega­cy lender), includ­ing a $10 mil­lion facil­i­ty secured by the Company’s 8.5‑acre facil­i­ty. This gave the Com­pa­ny suf­fi­cient liq­uid­i­ty through Q1 2024 to enable a sale of the business.
• Con­cur­rent with secur­ing DIP financ­ing, Chi­ron also com­menced a con­trolled auc­tion sales process for the assets and busi­ness of the Com­pa­ny with a clos­ing tar­get for Q1 2024.

“We have been so pleased with the work the Chi­ron team has done to help our com­pa­ny dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time”- CEO