Kargman Associates provides independent strategic advice to clients involved in complex and challenging international restructuring, cross-border insolvency, sovereign debt, distressed debt and non-performing loan (NPL) situations, with a special emphasis on the emerging markets. The firm's Founder and President, Steven T. Kargman,
is a leading expert on international debt restructurings and cross-border insolvency.

The firm develops practical, creative and pro-active strategies and solutions for addressing the unique challenges of international restructurings and cross-border insolvencies, including corporate restructurings, sovereign debt restructurings, project finance/infrastructure restructurings, distressed investments, and non-performing loans (NPLs). The firm draws on Mr. Kargman’s many years of extensive and broad-ranging experience in the international markets, including major emerging markets around the globe.

The firm provides independent, objective and sophisticated advice to its clients. The firm recognizes that international restructurings are interdisciplinary exercises—involving key financial, business, legal and strategic components—and provides clients with an integrated and comprehensive approach.

Mr. Kargman, formerly Lead Attorney of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (the official export credit agency of the US government) and General Counsel of the New York State Financial Control Board (the chief financial oversight agency for New York City), has had extensive involvement in many of the largest and most challenging international restructurings in the emerging markets. He has also played a leadership role in policy-oriented efforts to reform the international restructuring framework, including efforts to reform sovereign debt restructuring as well as develop “extraordinary restructuring solutions” to address the fallout in the real economy from the recent global financial crisis.

The firm provides international restructuring advisory services to clients in the following areas:

Corporate Debt Restructuring: Advising parties—whether creditors, investors, or borrowers—on strategies for achieving restructurings that achieve the client's objectives in a timely and effective manner, particularly in the face of difficult obstacles such as unfriendly insolvency laws, unreliable court systems, and/or recalcitrant parties. The firm excels at developing solutions where the parties are seemingly at loggerheads over what constitutes a reasonable or acceptable restructuring plan and/or where there is no clear roadmap for reaching a restructuring solution as is so often the case in the emerging markets.

Project Finance/Infrastructure/PPP Restructuring: Advising on how to restructure complex infrastructure projects and other project finance transactions (e.g., power projects, toll roads, airports, ports, oil & gas, etc.) where there are myriad competing interests and agendas for diverse project stakeholders that need to be reconciled and where the restructurings of the financing arrangements and the project arrangements need to be properly sequenced and/or coordinated.

Sovereign Debt Restructuring: Advising on the restructuring of the debt obligations of sovereigns and/or state-owned entities (SOEs). The firm's approach is based on an understanding of the unique dynamics of sovereign debt restructurings, including the interaction in these restructurings among sovereigns, creditors, investors, multilateral institutions, and/or domestic publics.

Mr. Kargman has been quoted several times in The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg on the ongoing Eurozone sovereign debt crisis (including with respect to developments in Greece and Cyprus), and he has made presentations at the United Nations on a proposal he co-developed for reforming the sovereign debt restructuring process and has chaired and participated in many high-level panel discussions on sovereign debt.
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He organized and led a special colloquium in Athens, Greece in February 2011 on the subject of how restructuring and insolvency approaches could be used to privatize troubled state-owned enterprises in Greece. For this project, he assembled a visiting delegation of a number of leading international insolvency and restructuring experts to advise Greek government officials and private sector players on this matter. 
(click here for his recently published article on this subject)

He also serves as Co-Chair of the Sovereign Insolvencies Committee of the International Insolvency Institute, and he teaches a course in China on Sovereign Debt Restructuring at Peking University School of Transnational Law.

Non-Performing Loans (NPLs): Advising sellers on how to efficiently dispose of a portfolio of NPLs; advising governments on the establishment of national asset management companies (AMCs); advising investors on the potential recovery risks of target NPLs in light of the host country legal regimes for insolvency and secured transactions as well as related matters; and performing due diligence for parties with respect to NPLs.

The firm also serves as a strategic advisor for the emerging markets to clients involved in project finance/infrastructure development (including PPPs), trade finance, foreign direct investment, privatizations and private equity. In addition, the firm advises on corporate governance, commercial law reform, reform of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and sectoral reform (e.g., electricity sector reform).