Novo Advisors successfully serves as lead financial advisor to Chapter 11 Trustee, Claudia Z. Springer, Principal of Novo Advisors, in the bankruptcy cases of Epic! Creations, Inc., Neuron Fuel, Inc., and Tangible Play, Inc. “(Epic! Companies)”, helping to stabilize the companies after their assets were depleted and their management team was decimated by the former owners. Springer led the Novo team to restore employee confidence, fill gaps in the management team, and ultimately sell the business for ~$100 million in just over nine months. Following these sales, Springer confirmed a Chapter 11 plan that transfers causes of action to a liquidating trust for the benefit of the Debtors’ defrauded lenders.

Springer led the Novo team to restore employee confidence, fill gaps in the management team, and ultimately sell the business for ~$100 million in just over nine months.

The Trustee retained Jenner & Block and Pashman Stein Walder Hayden as counsel, investment bankers Moelis & Company and SC&H Capital, FTI Consulting to recover assets in India, and the Law Offices of Panag & Babu as India counsel. 

The three US-based educational technology companies — separately acquired by Indian edtech giant Think & Learn Pvt. Ltd. (BYJU’s) between 2019 and 2021 — were forced into involuntary bankruptcy in June 2024 after BYJU’s owners engaged in a scheme to defraud creditors out of hundreds of millions of dollars. The Epic! Companies, or Debtors, were guarantors of $1.2 billion in term loans obtained by the BYJU's US subsidiary from the lender group, agented by GLAS, represented in the bankruptcy case by Kirkland & Ellis and Reed Smith. 

When Ms. Springer was appointed Chapter 11 Trustee in September 2024, the Debtors were in severe financial distress due to continued asset depletion by their ultimate parent entity in India and its owners. The pillaging did not stop until the Trustee — with critical assistance from the Court and her counsel, Jenner and Pashman — secured emergency relief and threatened legal action against various US banks to halt unauthorized fund transfers from the Debtors’ accounts to banks in India. The Trustee’s counsel successfully sought and received multiple restraining orders, injunctions, and emergency stay relief, and conducted an extensive investigation into the massive prepetition fraud, including the wrongdoers’ prepetition fraudulent transfer of $533 million.

With emergency DIP funding secured from the lenders, the Trustee utilized the financing to restore operations at Epic! and prepare the companies for sale. The Trustee’s first priority was to secure and restrict access to key technology platforms and assets, which was essential to stop the Indian parent company from diverting cash and controlling the Debtors’ technology assets. The Novo Advisors team, led by Partners Sandeep Gupta and Jacob Grall, was instrumental in achieving these goals. 

Novo Advisors assumed critical operational leadership roles in the Debtors’ business, which lacked management structure. At Epic!, with the help of existing employees, Novo built high-performing teams and implemented operational improvements to eliminate mounting technical and customer service issues. Novo also closed content development gaps by repairing broken relationships with vital publishers to obtain fresh content critical for customer retention. At Neuron Fuel, Novo replaced critical employees following the departure of the original co-founders including the CTO. Novo successfully maintained seamless operations at Neuron, swiftly resolving technical issues and preserving customer confidence during the transition. A positive working environment was cultivated, motivating the team to bridge the gap in technical support left by the departure of the CTO.

With no business records available at Epic!, Novo Advisors undertook the arduous task of reconstructing the company’s financial history from three years of bank statements to formulate a preliminary cash flow analysis.

With no business records available at Epic!, Novo Advisors undertook the arduous task of reconstructing the company’s financial history from three years of bank statements to formulate a preliminary cash flow analysis. Novo compiled a list of critical vendors. Publishers and technology providers required immediate attention, as their services were essential for continued business operations. Springer assisted the publishers in forming a unitary group and retaining competent counsel for the purposes of negotiating cure amounts and settling on missed post-petition payments. 

Before Springer was appointed, the Debtors’ back office in India ceased operations due to employees going unpaid for over four months. Novo Advisors identified critical gaps and developed a strategic and cost-effective plan to address operational deficiencies, which included rehiring many of those employees that had left as a result of nonpayment by the India parent entity and its owners. With critical hires in place, the team began tackling mounting technical and customer service issues. Technical resources were deployed to repair deficiencies in the platforms, restore critical information necessary for publisher payments, and facilitate the resolution of technical customer concerns. The customer service team reduced the backlog of customer service concerns from 24,000 to less than 50 and response time from 65 to 0.5 days, resulting in an improvement in customer satisfaction from a low of 46% to a high of 92%.

Novo further established the requisite back-office infrastructure for operational independence. This initiative involved implementing financial software solutions to automate the previously manual procedures for invoicing and payment tracking.

Novo Advisors used the DIP facility as well as cash collateral to invest in company-developed content for Epic! to restart the weekly release of new books, a process which had largely stopped. Novo further established the requisite back-office infrastructure for operational independence. This initiative involved implementing financial software solutions to automate the previously manual procedures for invoicing and payment tracking.

While Novo Advisors worked tirelessly to stabilize and improve business operations, the Jenner and Pashman teams successfully fought off multiple attempts by individuals associated with the wrong-doing insiders to gain control of Epic!’s intellectual property and payment systems. The court entered multiple injunctions to halt this misconduct and ultimately found the individuals responsible in contempt of court, levying a judgment of over $2 million plus fines totaling $25,000 per day.

The Trustee, working with the Jenner and Pashman teams, investment bankers Moelis and SC&H, and the lenders’ representatives, successfully guided the sale processes. The marketing efforts and operational turnaround resulted in the sale of Epic!’s assets for ~$100 million.The sale of Tangible Play’s remaining assets is imminent. The Trustee’s plan, which received unanimous creditor support, was confirmed by the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware in October 2025.

Claudia Z. Springer in her role as Chapter 11 Trustee worked alongside Novo Advisors Managing Partner Sandeep Gupta, Partner Jacob Grall, Managing Director Wen Rittsteuer, Senior Consultants Nate VanDeCasteele and Matt Mimlitz, and Consultant Erin DeCero. 

Partners Catherine Steege, Melissa Root, and Peter Rosenbaum led the Jenner & Block team, which included Partners Anna Meresidis, Shoba Pillay, and Edward Prokop, Special Counsels Jenna A. Bressel, Sharon K. Moraes, and Laura E. Pelanek, and Associates Joshua Davids, BJ Franovic, Rachel Magaziner, Alex Ryshina, and Bill Williams. 

Partners Joseph C. Barsalona and Henry J. Jaffe led the Pashman Stein Walder Hayden team, which included Alexis R. Gambale and Leslie Salcedo. 

Moelis & Company’s team included William Derrough, Cullen Murphy, Mayank Pagaria, Nate Laverriere, Manharan Rao, Siddhant Khemka, Erik Wihlborn, and Claire Zhong; SC&H's team included Michael Gorman and Ken Mann. FTI Consulting’s team included Matt Greenblatt and Andrew Hinkelman, and Quinn Emanuel’s team included Partner Ben Finestone. The Law Offices of Panag & Babu’s team was led by Samudra Sarangi, Sherbir Panag, and Pravin Panpalia. GLAS Trust Company served as the agent for lenders represented by Kirkland & Ellis Partners Jordan Elkin, Ravi Shankar and Pat Nash, among others.