About the Authors
George Schultze is Managing Member and Founder of Schultze Asset Management, LLC (SAM). He chairs the firm’s Investment and Strategy Committees and, together with his team, makes the final decision on all investments for the portfolio.
Mr. Schultze has previously served on the following boards and committees:
American Plumbing & Mechanical, Inc.: Chair of Bondholders’ Committee
Armstrong World Industries, Inc.: Ad Hoc Committee of Debt Holders
Atkins Nutritional: Ad Hoc Bank Lenders’ Committee
Breed Technologies, Inc.: Trust Beneficiaries’ Ad Hoc Committee
Chrysler: Committee of Non-TARP 1st Lien Lenders
Collins & Aikman Corp.: Ad Hoc Bank Lender’s Committee
General Chemical Group, Inc.: Official Bondholders’ Committee
Horizon Natural Resources: Pre-petition Senior Lenders’ Committee
Interstate Bakeries Corp.: Ad Hoc Senior Lenders’ Committee
Interstate Bakeries Corp.: Ad Hoc Trade Claim Committee
Le Nature’s Inc.: Ad Hoc Committee of Secured Lenders
M. Fabrikant & Sons, Inc.: Bank Lender’s Committee
Power Plumbing GP, Inc.: Board of Directors
Tropicana Entertainment Opco: Secured Lenders’ Steering Committee
Tweeter Home Entertainment Group, Inc.: Post-petition Lender’s Committee
Tweeter NewCo, LLC: Board of Directors
Twinlab Corp.: Ex Officio Bondholders’ Committee
United Airlines: Ad Hoc Municipal Bondholders’ Committee (JFK Facility)
US Timberlands: Ad Hoc Bondholders’ Committee
Washington Group International: Class 7 Claim Holders Ad Hoc Committee
Werner Holding Co., Inc.: Board of Directors Audit Committee
Werner Holding Co., Inc.: Second Lien Bank Debt Committee
Mr. Schultze currently serves on the following boards and committees:
Fabrikant Inventory, LLC: elected to Board of Directors, July 20, 2007
Fabrikant Receivables, LLC: elected to Board of Directors, July 20, 2007
Hedge Fund Association (“HFA”): elected to Board of Directors, March 2012
Le Nature’s Inc. Liquidation Trust: elected to Trust Board, July 17, 2008
Pineapple Grove Village Condominium Association, Inc.: elected to Board, October 15, 2008
Resurrection Church (Rye, NY): elected to Investment Finance Committee
Tropicana Entertainment: elected to Litigation Trust Subcommittee, July 2009
Werner Holding Co., Inc.: elected to Board of Directors, November 7, 2007
Whitehall Jeweler’s Case: elected Chief Liquidating Officer for Fabrikant Claimants, June 26, 2008
Mr. Schultze is widely recognized as an expert on distressed and special situations investing and is often quoted in the media regarding high-profile reorganization cases such as the Chrysler Automotive bankruptcy. He is also a frequent speaker at industry conferences and graduate schools such as Harvard Business School. Prior to founding SAM, he honed his activist distressed investing approach with MD Sass. Before that, he was employed with Fiduciary Partners fund of funds, the Mayer Brown & Platt law firm, and Merrill Lynch.
Mr. Schultze is a joint graduate of Columbia Business School and Columbia Law School, JD/MBA. He founded the Columbia Law School Investment Club and served as editor for the Columbia Business Law Review. He also authored several papers including: “Negotiating the TWA Bankruptcy Restructuring,” “Tax Factors and ERISA Implications of Corporate Restructurings,” and “International Banking Law.” While at Columbia, he placed second in the business school’s annual stock-picking contest in 1995.
Mr. Schultze earned a BA from Rutgers University, where he graduated with a joint major in Economics/Political Science and the Henry Rutgers Scholar distinction. While at Rutgers, he won The Wall Street Journal Award for Excellence in Economics and placed twenty-third nationwide (out of over 14,000 participants) and first at Rutgers in the 1991 AT&T Annual Stock Picking Contest.
Although born and raised in the United States, Mr. Schultze is fluent in German and Spanish.
Janet Lewis is a writer, editor, and marketing/PR consultant with more than 20 years of experience covering all aspects of finance. Ms. Lewis has written for publications in New York, London, and Paris including Fortune, The Banker, Global Finance, The European, FX Week, Dealmaker and Institutional Investor, where she was the magazine’s Paris correspondent and later covered banking and research as a staff writer in New York. She subsequently moved to London, where her positions included European Editor at FX Week, Editor at Treasury Management International, and Features and Supplements Editor at Financial News. After returning to New York in 2004, Ms. Lewis joined Investment Dealers’ Digest as Assistant Managing Editor. In 2006, she began writing and consulting for financial marketing/PR agencies and financial services clients, including Deutsche Asset Management, OppenheimerFunds, Standard & Poor’s, and Ernst & Young.
Ms. Lewis earned a BA from Cornell University, where she started her writing career as a reporter at The Cornell Daily Sun, graduating with a joint major in history and Russian studies. She has spoken at financial industry conferences, appeared on Reuters Television, and moderated roundtable discussions on a variety of financial topics. In addition to magazine and newspaper articles, Ms. Lewis’s publications include The Future of the Foreign Exchange Markets, a book-length report published by Reuters Business Insights.