Arent Fox Wins M&A Advisor's Distressed M&A Deal of The Year for Sale of Rubie's Costume Company, Inc.

Rubie’s is the world’s largest costume provider, with a wide-ranging portfolio of licensed products, including Marvel, Warner Brothers, Nickelodeon, Disney, and Lucasfilm costumes, memorabilia, novelties, and toys. In need of immediate funding to prepare its 2020 Halloween inventory, Rubie’s filed for protection under Chapter 11 enabling it to secure the necessary financing to continue operations and sell its assets through a Chapter 11 Section 363 process in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of New York before the Hon. Alan S. Trust, Chief Judge.

The Arent Fox team, led by partner George P. Angelich, represented the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Rubie’s Costume Company, Inc., et al. As counsel to the Official Committee, Arent Fox negotiated key aspects of the sale to enable a distribution and recovery for unsecured creditors. The distribution to general unsecured creditors was a notable win and increasingly rare outcome for retail companies in a retail environment plagued by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Arent Fox’s Bankruptcy & Financial Restructuring practice is at the forefront of the most extensive, most complex, and high-profile bankruptcy proceedings and restructuring throughout the United States. The group advises and represents clients in a broad range of industries: cosmetics, banking and finance, energy, utilities, oil and gas, retail, entertainment, health care, life sciences, hospitality, nursing homes and assisted living, manufacturing, and real estate, and telecommunications.

The Arent Fox Bankruptcy & Financial Restructuring team regularly counsels creditors’ committees, indenture trustees, agents, bondholders, lenders, debtors, landlords, trade, suppliers, and contract counterparties.