HoldCo Advisors, manager of debt issued by Guaranty Financial Group, in support of legal action against Temple-Inland, recovery of damages to Guaranty creditors, taxpayers

Kendall Sinclair

NEW YORK , August 26, 2011 (press release) – HoldCo Advisors, manager of over $50 million of debt securities issued by Guaranty Financial Group (GFG), expressed its definitive support for Liquidation Trustee Kenneth L. Tepper's recent legal actions against Temple-Inland. In the case, Tepper has filed a billion-dollar-plus lawsuit against packaging and building products company Temple-Inland Inc., certain affiliates and several former and current executives of both Temple-Inland and GFG. The suit seeks recovery of damages to GFG creditors and American Taxpayers through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as a result of the spinoff and subsequent failure of Temple-Inland subsidiary Guaranty Bank in 2009.

"As distressed investors, we believe in the incontestable enforceability of contract and law - and demand that Temple-Inland meet that standard," said Vik Ghei, co-founder of HoldCo Advisors. Added co-founder Misha Zaitzeff, "We have strong reason to believe that the vast majority of GFG creditors made their investment several years ago at par. A negative precedent here could have far-reaching, damaging implications for bank capital markets."

HoldCo Advisors is represented by global law firm Duane Morris LLP, a leading firm in banking insolvency litigation.

About HoldCo AdvisorsHoldCo Advisors manages approximately $1.5 billion notional of distressed debt issued by more than 70 bankrupt or otherwise distressed financial holding companies whose subsidiaries are in various stages of deep insolvency, including most of the largest 25 bank failures of the recent cycle. HoldCo Advisors seeks to maximize value utilizing its principals' significant experience as distressed investors in the financial sector and employs an activist approach by pursuing a dual-pronged business negotiation and litigation strategy.

About the Principals

Vik Ghei, Founding PartnerPrior to co-founding HoldCo Advisors, Mr. Ghei was a Managing Director and Associate Portfolio Manager at Tricadia Capital where he invested in and traded a book of distressed debt and event-driven equity securities. Prior to joining Tricadia, Mr. Ghei was a partner at Owl Creek Asset Management where he was a generalist focused on distressed debt. Prior to Owl Creek, Mr. Ghei was an analyst at Bayside Capital, a distressed private equity fund, where he focused on investing in middle market bankruptcies and out-of-court restructurings. Mr. Ghei began his career at Goldman Sachs in the Financial Institutions group. Mr. Ghei graduated with honors in Economics from Columbia College.

Misha Zaitzeff, Founding PartnerPrior to co-founding HoldCo Advisors, Mr. Zaitzeff was an analyst at Tricadia Capital, where he was responsible for analyzing, monitoring, trading, and investing in both public and private financial institutions as well as pools of financial credit assets such as corporate loans, bonds and residential real estate. To this end, Mr. Zaitzeff was responsible for performing extensive balance sheet and credit analysis, evaluation and modeling of debt capital structure and cash flow mechanics, and pursuing activist distressed debt investing strategies. Mr. Zaitzeff graduated with a degree in Computer Science from Brown University.

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