Hingham Campus and Linden Ponds lender agent requests plan mediation

By Caroline Salls

Pittsburgh, July 1 - Hingham Campus, LLC and Linden Ponds, Inc. lender agent Sovereign Bank asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas to order the companies, the agent and fixed-rate parties to mediate disputed plan of reorganization issues, according to a Friday court filing.

"In order to enhance the debtors' ability to achieve a successful restructuring for the sake of their residents and creditors, these cases must conclude rapidly," Sovereign said in the motion.

"The parties are likely unable to achieve a negotiated resolution by themselves on the short timetable that these cases require."

According to the motion, the companies and the fixed-rate parties agreed on terms, filed a plan and entered a lock-up agreement after Sovereign was excluded from pre-bankruptcy plan negotiations.

Sovereign said it does not believe the plan can be confirmed over its dissent, but the lock-up agreement requires Hingham and Linden to move forward with the "unconfirmable proposed plan."

The agent said the companies' first-day motions mischaracterized the pre-bankruptcy exchange offer and pre-packaged plan negotiations "in a thinly veiled effort to portray Sovereign as the bad actor - negotiating in bad faith and forcing the debtors to resort to Chapter 11."

"While this narrative may serve the debtors' and fixed-rate parties' goal of rationalizing the choice of the fixed-rate parties as the favored creditor group under the proposed plan, it is not supported by the facts," Sovereign said in the motion.

Senior Living Retirement Communities LLC, formerly known as Erickson Retirement Communities, LLC, is the sole member of Hingham Campus. Linden Ponds operates the companies' continuing care retirement communities.

Linden Ponds is based in Hingham, Mass., and Hingham Campus is based in Baltimore. The companies filed for bankruptcy on June 14. The Chapter 11 case number is 11-33912.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.