Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics Commons^™

Don’T Get Screwed: What Factors Determine The Inclusion Of J. Crew Blockers?, Michael Sill

CMC Senior Theses

A “J. Crew Maneuver” is a type of collateral-stripping event that transfers the value of a nearly insolvent company from the lender to the borrower. This concept matters to lenders because it exposes them to significant downside risk through the loss of hundreds of millions of pledged collateral. While credit analysts and debt lawyers have commented on the importance of preserving creditor value ex ante through lender-protective clauses embedded within debt documents, this paper breaks ground on empirically studying the determinants of these protective clauses known as “J. Crew Blockers”. I hypothesize that private equity backing, a contractionary credit environment, …