GEORGE H. KALIKMAN
OF COUNSEL
direct: 415.420.1377
email: gkalikman@kbkllp.com
EDUCATION:
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Harvard College (A.B., cum laude, 1975)
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University of California College of the Law, San Francisco (J.D., 1978)
ADMISSIONS:
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U.S. Supreme Court
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U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth and Third Circuits
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U.S. District Courts for all Districts of California
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U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
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U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey
BIOGRAPHY
George Kalikman represents businesses ranging from closely held to publicly traded companies that are engaged in diverse industries including financial services, real estate investment, real estate development, telecommunications, information technology, manufacturing, music and entertainment, resort and hospitality, construction, oil and gas, agriculture, health care, and insurance. He works closely with companies’ principals to develop and implement strategies to maximize companies’ value and to achieve results in an efficient and tax-advantaged manner.
Mr. Kalikman has advised many public and private companies and closely held businesses in a broad range of commercial transactions and corporate, finance, and real estate matters. He has substantial experience in representing boards of directors, individual directors, and officers of companies in corporate governance matters and shareholder disputes, including breach of fiduciary duty and alter ego issues.
He has represented institutional lenders located in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Japan, and Australia in the negotiation and documentation of asset-based, real estate, construction, acquisition, and working capital loans. He has created form loan and security and credit facility documentation for a money center bank, a major U.S. manufacturer of home and hardware products, a leading international electronics manufacturer, and an international pharmaceutical services provider.
He has represented money center banks, investment banks, hedge funds, private equity and venture capital investors, real estate investors, and other secured and unsecured creditors in financial restructuring, commercial financing, loan documentation, secured transactions, workouts, bankruptcy, secured creditor enforcement, and other transactional and litigation matters. He has also represented numerous Fortune 500 companies and major European, Latin American, and Pacific Rim businesses.
He has substantial experience in structured finance transactions, asset-backed securitizations, and the workout, restructuring, and refinancing of complex securitized and structured financings. He has significant experience in the issuance of “true sale,” “true transfer,” and substantive non-consolidation opinions in real estate and intellectual property securitizations.
Mr. Kalikman has substantial experience, both as a retained neutral and as an advocate on behalf of his clients, in the mediation of disputes between and among business partners and other parties seeking a negotiated resolution of complex business disputes. He also works closely with his colleagues in arbitration proceedings and in litigation cases.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Baker McKenzie,
International Partner
(1997 - 2001)
Liner LLP (now DLA Piper),
Partner (2004 - 2008)
S.F. Managing Partner (2006 - 2008)
Keller Benvenutti Kim LLP
Of Counsel
(2023 – present)
Squire Patton Boggs,
Partner (2001 – 2003)
Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP,
Partner (2009 - 2023)
S.F. Managing Partner (2010 – 2023)
Awards & honors
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Listed in The Best Lawyers in America in the areas of Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights / Insolvency and Reorganization Law and Litigation-Bankruptcy, 2010-2024.
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Selected by Best Lawyers as 2022 “Lawyer of the Year” in San Francisco for Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights / Insolvency and Reorganization Law.
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Named to “Northern California Super Lawyers” for creditors’ rights and bankruptcy, 2004-2023.
organizations & groups
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State Bar of California
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President, Exeter Association of Northern California, Phillips Exeter Academy (2008 - 2019)
REPRESENTATIVE ENGAGEMENTS
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Represented New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. (NUMMI), the last vehicle assembly plant in California and one of the largest employers in Alameda County, in extensive negotiations with Toyota Motor Corporation, NUMMI’s 50 percent shareholder, after General Motors Corporation, NUMMI’s other 50 percent shareholder, filed bankruptcy. Working closely with NUMMI’s board of directors, Mr. Kalikman negotiated with representatives of Toyota and several of its affiliates, which were represented by Tobias Keller and Jones Day. Those negotiations culminated in the establishment of a $250 million financial support package for NUMMI’s salaried and hourly team members.
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Represented a specialty lender and six of its affiliates in the negotiation and documentation of a $100 million credit facility that enabled the lender to establish and fund a first-of-its-kind, asset-based lending program secured by fine art.
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In the first securitization to use a new asset class – theatrical film rights – as collateral, he participated in structuring the bankruptcy-remoteness of the transaction, a $525 million non-recourse debt facility.
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Represented a publicly traded company based in San Francisco and its board of directors in various disputes involving significant shareholders and former officers and directors of the company.
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Represented an oil and gas company and its board of directors in disputes with the company’s former president, who became the subject of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy case.
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Represented affiliated companies that originally owned a minority general partnership interest and 1 percent limited partnership interest in a partnership that owns a large affordable housing facility for seniors. After various disagreements arose among the owners of other general and limited partnership interests in the facility, Mr. Kalikman represented his clients in multi-million-dollar disputes that were mediated, arbitrated, and litigated in California and Massachusetts. Following the successful resolution of all of those matters, and after his clients closed a $35 million refinancing of the first mortgage loan on the facility, Mr. Kalikman and his colleagues, working collaboratively with his clients, devised a restructuring strategy that resulted in the clients becoming the sole owners of the partnership that owns the facility.
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Represented three affiliated hedge funds in litigation among 19 parties involving various loans made in connection with the development of time-share resorts in California, Hawaii, and Canada. Led the negotiations resulting in a global resolution of the parties’ disputes.
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Represented a Taiwanese limited partner in a partnership dispute among the owners of one of the largest resorts in Hawaii.
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In In re Enron Corp., et al., worked with a team of lawyers serving as co-counsel to the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors.
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In In re Harder, represented the debtor-in-possession in the largest Chapter 11 bankruptcy case ever filed in Oregon. The case involved over 200 assisted living facilities in 37 states, more than 100 institutional lenders asserting secured claims of $1.8 billion, and 2,000 unsecured creditors and investors asserting claims in excess of $600 million.
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In In re Winterland Concessions Co., represented Signatures Network, Inc., the leader in the entertainment/music artist tour merchandising industry, in its successful bid to acquire the debtor’s assets.
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After California enacted legislation requiring a local public entity to engage in mediation with its principal creditors before being authorized to file a municipal bankruptcy case under Chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy Code, Mr. Kalikman was selected by the parties to serve as the mediator in one of the first cases arising after the passage of the new state law.
* Other representations available upon request.