On February 24, 2010, Fleet Street Finance Two P.L.C. (“FSF2”) completed its debt restructuring and consequently became the first Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities (“CMBS”) Issuer in Europe to achieve an extension of the legal final maturity of its CMBS. FSF2 had issued its CMBS in 2006 as part of a €3.5 million financing of the properties of German retailers Karstadt and Quelle (“K&Q”). However, in the summer of 2009 K&Q became insolvent and a complex restructuring was required to avoid a liquidation. Moelis & Company acted as financial advisor to the Ad Hoc Committee of the €1.1 billion CMBS Noteholders of FSF2 in a deal that involved extending the CMBS maturity to stabilize the capital structure and allow Karstadt to exit insolvency and be sold to a new investor. In return for the extension, CMBS noteholders benefitted from increased margin, improvement of the cashflow waterfalls including increased amortization of the senior CMBS tranches and various structural enhancements which were implemented to defend the CMBS credit ratings. This was one of the first CMBS deals to be fully restructured in what is, following the explosion in structured finance deal size and complexity that took place during the credit boom, a new and intricate sector for European restructuring.
