Bankruptcy lawyers grappled with heavier competition for fewer and smaller bankruptcy filings last year, as the number of corporate filings dropped by half, to 106 from 211, according to BankruptcyData.com. Total prepetition assets held by companies entering bankruptcy protection came to $89 billion, less than a sixth of the previous year’s total.
Many companies on the edge were able to refinance at favorable rates in 2010, pushing the day of reckoning out another two or three years. “The credit markets gave them breathing room,” notes Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel’s Kenneth Eckstein.
