Company Names New CEO, Michael K. Robinson
WAYNE, Pa. — Sungard Availability Services (Sungard AS) today announced that it has successfully emerged from its “prepackaged” Chapter 11 restructuring. On May 1, 2019, the Company briefly put its U.S. entities into Chapter 11 to effectuate its consensual agreement with a majority of its creditors to reduce Sungard AS’ overall debt. The restructuring reduced the Company’s debt by over $800 million and includes $100 million of new liquidity provided by the Company’s creditors. With the Company’s Plan of Reorganization confirmed yesterday by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, Sungard AS emerges from this process as a much stronger company with a sustainable capital structure to support the Company’s investment and growth plan and to continue to service existing and new customers well into the future.
Sungard AS also announced the appointment of Michael (Mike) K. Robinson as the Company’s new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Mr. Robinson will succeed Andrew A. Stern, who served as CEO for nine years. Mr. Robinson brings extensive operating and board leadership experience in public and private communications, technology and infrastructure companies. He most recently served as CEO, President and a Member of the Board of Directors for Broadview Networks. In his 12-year tenure at Broadview Networks, he led the transformation of Broadview’s strategy and business model from a traditional local telecom service provider to a cloud-based Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) provider serving the needs of enterprise customers nationwide. Prior to Broadview, Mr. Robinson served as Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President for several organizations.
“I’m thrilled to be joining Sungard AS,” says Michael K. Robinson, CEO. “Our strong heritage as a leader in IT services, colocation and disaster recovery creates an exciting opportunity for the emerged business. The strength of our restructured balance sheet combined with our robust solutions portfolio, extensive global footprint, strong customer base and the outstanding professionals who are dedicated to providing exceptional service for our customers make us uniquely positioned to take advantage of the market potential before us.”
Sungard AS operated in the normal course of business during the short restructuring process, including delivering the high levels of service its customers expect and making planned investments in its fully resilient production and recovery solutions portfolio.
The reorganized Company’s new ownership and largest shareholders now include: Angelo, Gordon & Co., LP; The Carlyle Group Global Credit; FS Investments and GSO Capital Partners LP, all of whom will have representation on the restructured Company’s Board of Directors, along with Mr. Robinson.
Centerview Partners, Kirkland & Ellis LLP and AlixPartners served as advisors to the Company during the process. Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, PJT Partners LP and DH Capital, LLC served as advisors to a crossover group of the Company’s prepetition secured lenders and unsecured noteholders and Jones Day and Houlihan Lokey Capital, Inc. served as advisors to a separate group of secured lenders. Working with the leadership team, these advisors ensured that Sungard AS obtained court approval of its Plan of Reorganization in less than 19 hours and emerged from Chapter 11 in less than 48 hours, an aggressive pace that has helped to preserve the Company’s relationships with key stakeholders and will further help to position the Company for future success.
About Sungard Availability Services
Sungard Availability Services (“Sungard AS”) is a leading provider of critical production and recovery services to global enterprise companies. Sungard AS partners with customers across the globe to understand their business needs and provide production and recovery services tailored to help them achieve their desired business outcomes. Leveraging more than 40 years of experience, Sungard AS designs, builds and runs critical IT services that help customers manage complex IT, adapt quickly and build resiliency and availability. To learn more, visit www.sungardas.com or call 1-800-468-7483. Connect with us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
