Masonite International Corp.'s Chapter 11 reorganization was in some respects a three-month, running cell-phone conversation between CEO Fred Lynch and bankruptcy counsel Jonathan Henes of Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
"Midnight on a Friday, 9 on a Saturday morning, 10 on a Sunday night," Lynch says of his calls with Henes. "It was constant. He worked all of the time."
The doormaker emerged in June, 85 days after filing.
"He's able to bring groups together, boil the complex down to the simple and bring issues to conclusion," Lynch says.
In the past 14 months, the 40-year-old Henes has also led resin company Wellman Inc., precooked meal vendor Pierre Foods Inc. and chemicals producer Solutia Inc. out of Chapter 11 protection. TV station operator ION Media Networks Inc. and chemicals manufacturer Tronox Inc. are in the pipeline.
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"He has a tremendous bedside manner with senior executives," says Madison Dearborn Partners LLC general counsel Mark Tresnowski, who had been general counsel of Dallas telecom Allegiance Communications LLC and worked with Henes during the company's Chapter 11 reorganization in 2003 and 2004.
"He's got a great way of explaining the bankruptcy process," Tresnowski adds. "He's got a great sense of humor and doesn't take himself too seriously."
The recent cases reflect the themes of the still-unfolding economic crisis. Solutia sued its banks to hold them to exit financing. Doormaker Masonite reorganized after housing starts fell from 2 million in 2005 to less than 500,000 this year. Surging commodity prices contributed to Pierre Foods' woes. Wellman, which Judge Stuart Bernstein called "a poster child for what Chapter 11 is supposed to be," was on the verge of liquidation before Kirkland and Lazard struck a last-minute deal between first- and second-lien lenders.
"Bankruptcies are messy, and they are a contact sport," Henes says. "You need to take a high-level view and bring some order to the chaos."
Henes did not always plan to be a lawyer. He majored in history at Union College, where he was a running back on the football team. After college, he coached lacrosse and basketball for a year at Croton-Harmon High School in Croton, N.Y., where he had played football, basketball and baseball as a student.
A friend suggested law school. On his first day at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in 1993, he got another auspicious sign when he met his future wife, Pam.
M&A appealed to Henes. As a summer associate at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, he witnessed the scrum of bankruptcy lawyering. "They were right in the middle of the negotiations," Henes says. "There was no real difference between the business people and the lawyers."
After four years at Weil, in 2000 Henes started a legal and financial software company, Blaze Ventures. But with the crash of the Nasdaq and the approaching birth of his first child, Sam, now 7, he returned to the law. "It was time to grow up and be responsible," he says.
Kirkland & Ellis' Jamie Sprayregen recruited Henes in 2001, a more hospitable period for bankruptcy than technology companies. Early assignments included the creditors' committee of AT&T Latin America Corp., Cornerstone Propane Partners LLP, Newcor Inc. and Allegiance.
Henes himself describes Solutia as a professional turning point. "Rick Cieri came to Kirkland on Feb. 3, 2005, and brought Solutia with him," he says of a fellow partner. Henes started that day on the complex case and didn't finish for three years.
The New York group has expanded from four lawyers -- a partner and three associates -- to more than 40 during Henes' tenure. "He has been a key part of the development and the awesome strengthening of the New York restructuring group over the past eight years," Sprayregen says. "Jon has really been an integral part of helping to recruit and train those folks."
Meanwhile, his family has grown to include Ellie, 5, and Charlotte, 2, in addition to Pam and Sam.
A good restructuring lawyer, Henes says, concentrates on what is best for the company and persists during what can appear to be intractable talks while understanding the perspectives, and leverage, of myriad parties. "It's difficult. It's tiring. It can be antagonistic," he says.
"There is yelling. There is screaming. There are nights without sleep. If you keep driving and believe you'll get that great result, you'll get that great result."
