Profile details
About Emma Gateaud
Emma is a counsel based in London. She is part of the restructuring and insolvency team, and her practice involves a wide range of sectors. Emma has acted across the capital structure for key stakeholders, including lenders, corporates, ad-hoc groups of bondholders, distressed investors, shareholders, directors, purchasers, insolvency officeholders and security trustees.
She has worked extensively on a wide range of cross-border and complex restructurings and refinancings, including high-yield bond and CMBS restructurings, distressed M&A, US Chapter 11 bankruptcies and pension restructurings. She has also advised on English schemes of arrangement, administrations, company voluntary arrangements, and arrangements with the UK Pension Regulator and Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Emma’s cross-border experience has involved the UK, Europe, the US and other parts of the world.
Over the course of her career, Emma has spent six months seconded to the firm’s Shanghai office and six months in the Paris office and in 2018, Emma was seconded for six months to the financial stability directorate at the Bank of England where she was able to assist with her insolvency expertise in the financial services sector
Emma is a native English and French speaker. She also speaks German and basic Mandarin.
Recent work
- Advising an ad hoc group of senior secured lenders in the financial restructuring of the French retail chain, the Casino Group.
- Acting for Credit Suisse on its exposure to the Greensill Group.
- Advising the members of the Ad Hoc Committee of lenders on the financial restructuring of the AccorInvest group, which operates 887 hotels worldwide and employs over 26,000 employees in 28 countries.
- Advising the Ad Hoc Group of lenders on the fully consensual debt for equity transaction in respect of the Tunstall Group.
- Advising Ted Baker in connection with amendments to its financing arrangements in connection with a recapitalisation of the group by way of an equity raise, in the context of the disposal of its headquarters and Covid 19.
- Advising an ad-hoc group of bondholders on the dual outcome scheme of high-yield notes issued by a Dutch issuer, parent of a large Czech mining group, New World Resources.
- Advising an ad-hoc group of bondholders on the first scheme of arrangement to be used in the commercial mortgage-backed securities market, which involved an English scheme of arrangement of an Irish issuer in relation to German assets – Deutsche Annington Grand.
- Advising Kodak and certain other non-US subsidiaries in relation to a restructuring of the Kodak group to settle pension liabilities in excess of $2.8bn.
- Advising Cattles and Welcome Financial Services, the sub-prime lender, on its £3bn restructuring, which included arrangements with the Financial Services Compensation Scheme in respect of PPI claims.
- Advising IBRC (formerly Anglo-Irish Bank) on the restructuring of the debt of the Irish Quinn Group, through an Irish law company voluntary arrangement.
- Advising UK Coal, the largest coal mining business in the UK, on a number of liquidity crises, and its landmark financial and pensions restructuring.
Qualifications
Education
- King’s College London, UK (LLB in English law, first class)
- Maitrise en droit prive Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne, France (French law)
Professional qualifications
Solicitor, England and Wales