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Michael Weinczok

Michael is a partner in the Financial Services Group. His practice focuses on all aspects of business restructuring and distress investing, with a particular emphasis on acting as counsel for both creditors and financial institutions in international and cross-border reorganizations, as well as acting on behalf of capital market participants in undervalued or distressed investments.

Most recently, Michael was a Managing Director & Partner of a significant Canadian private equity fund manager focused on distress and undervalue investments across a wide variety of industries including biotech, manufacturing, media, communications and transportation. During this time, he developed a comprehensive understanding of the analytic, investment, execution, growth and exit strategies employed by private equity firms. Michael was involved in examining capital structures of targets from both an equity and debt perspective, and led a number of key investments and initiatives. He also participated in a variety of merger and acquisition reviews, restructuring opportunities, and shareholder activist rights issues.

Michael has routinely acted as counsel to creditors, debtors, monitors, boards of directors, syndicates, purchasers, sellers, and underwriters on a wide variety of transactions including many involving the Companies Creditors Arrangement Act and Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. He has extensive experience in asset-based lending, private mergers and acquisitions, commercial arbitration, project finance, refinancings, swaps, derivatives, shareholder issues, and corporate restructurings. Michael also has extensive experience in front of the Commercial Court and other Canadian and U.S. courts.

Michael played a significant role in the recent North American automotive industry restructurings. He acted for the Federal Government of Canada, through Industry Canada, in connection with the court-supervised sale of both General Motors and Chrysler. The transactions involved over US$12.5 billion of new Canadian Government financing and included a host of extremely time-sensitive issues, including cross-border bankruptcy, M&A, financing and litigation. The successful resolution allowed both automakers to maintain production share in the North American market and saved thousands of jobs.

Prior to his private equity role, Michael spent 14 years in private practice at two major Toronto-based law firms.

Michael is a soccer enthusiast and is the founder of the Toronto entry in the bi-annual Mundiavocat Lawyers World Cup of Soccer. He continues to play competitively and is extremely active in the community, including coaching rep soccer and hockey.

Education

LL.B., Dalhousie University,1990
B.A. (Hons.), Dalhousie University, 1987

Call to the bar

Ontario, 1992

Associations

• American Bankruptcy Institute
• American Bar Association
• Canadian Bar Association
• International Bar Association - Insolvency, Restructuring and Creditors' Rights Committee (SIRC)
• Ontario Bar Association
• Turnaround Management Association

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