Grant Thornton is expanding the capabilities of its Corporate Advisory & Restructuring Services with the additions of Kenneth Simon and Ryan Maupin, who join as managing director and director, respectively.
Simon specializes in providing financial advisory services to unsecured creditors’ committees and has worked on more than 100 cases during the past 30 years. He is respected throughout the industry as a seasoned professional that achieves the goals and objectives of his clients in a timely and cost-effective manner. He is recognized for his extensive retail industry experience and diverse experience in other industries including telecommunications, textile and apparel, consumer products and manufacturing. He has advised committees in both middle market and in large and complex bankruptcies, including Syms, Filene’s Basement, Footstar, Alexander Stores, Gottschalks, Sharper Image, Steve & Barry’s Manhattan, Global Crossing, Towle Manufacturing, Guilford Mills, Oakwood Homes and Acme Metals.
Simon has also provided expert witness testimony on numerous occasions regarding accounting improprieties, solvency analyses, preferential transfers, fraudulent conveyances, substantive consolidation and plan of reorganization-related issues.
Prior to joining Grant Thornton from Loughlin Management Partners + Co, Simon worked for Ernst & Young, Deloitte and BDO.
“We are very excited to have Ken join us – he is a senior member of the bankruptcy community with an impressive capability in serving Official Committees of Unsecured Creditors. Ken has an impressive track record of more than 30 years of recovering value for unsecured creditors,” said Jim Peko, national managing principal of the Corporate Advisory & Restructuring group.
Rejoining Grant Thornton is director Maupin, who has more than ten years of restructuring and financial advisory experience, including in and out-of-court restructuring of domestic and international companies. He joins the firm from KPMG’s Special Situations Advisory group.
Maupin’s restructuring experience includes several complex international matters. In 2010, Maupin participated in Grant Thornton’s international secondment program at member firm, Grant Thornton Specialist Services (Cayman) Limited. There he assisted Joint Official Liquidators in the winding-up of Cayman-based hedge funds and certain entities of a large principal investment firm with assets listed at $9.2 billion.
“With Ryan’s international experience and his ability to leverage his experience in the Cayman Islands, he is a very valuable resource in today’s global environment. We are so pleased that he has returned to Grant Thornton,” added Peko.
Recently, Maupin advised a large sharia-compliant sovereign wealth fund in Kuwait through the restructuring of a distressed real estate investment in the United Kingdom. Prior to that, Maupin managed and executed the wind-down of two domestic subsidiaries of larger international parent companies based in Singapore and Portugal. For domestic clients, he served as the crisis manager to a large not-for-profit organization, and assisted the second largest owner of US-based neighborhood shopping centers in selling its asset portfolio of 590 properties to The Blackstone Group for $9.4 billion.
Grant Thornton LLP’s Corporate Advisory & Restructuring Services (CARS) group includes more than 60 professionals in six offices in the United States and more than 1,000 restructuring professionals around the world.