Bob Randolph recently completed an assignment as a member of an Independent “Fairness Committee” advising a global equity company (“the Company”) on the fairness, from the perspective of its minority interest holders, of a debt for equity transaction involving majority shareholders of the Company who had borrowed money from a third party Lender and who wished to satisfy their debt obligations to the Lender by transferring shares in the Company to the Lender. Working with an investment bank and independent evaluation experts, the Committee, chaired by Seattle attorney Ron Erickson, rejected a straight debt for equity swap and, in its stead, crafted a solution whereby the debt obligations held by the Lender would be exchanged for newly issued preferred stock in the Company, thus protecting the interests of the Company, the Lender, minority interest holders and the Borrowers.