Olympia & York (Litigation)

O&Y was a Canadian-based multi-billion real estate empire with global interests. However, in the early 1990's, this empire began to crumble due to depressed commercial real estate markets, O&Y's large (and unoccupied) projects and O&Y's excessive leverage. In an attempt to stave off bank creditors, O&Y transferred collateral pledges around its byzantine structure. In the end, this "last ditch" effort failed to prevent US and Canadian bankruptcies – but it did create turmoil regarding which legal entities had pledged which collateral to what creditors.

Gordian Group was engaged by one of the O&Y estates to assist in tracking down the economic impact of O&Y's pre-bankruptcy conduct. Gordian Group's work entailed detailed analyses of the O&Y structure, valuations over certain estate assets and analyses of the degree of solvency of various O&Y entities.