Ian Fredericks joined Hilco Global in 2011 after working successfully as a distressed merger and acquisition and corporate restructuring attorney. Over the course of his career, Fredericks has negotiated and closed hundreds of transactions involving tens of billions of dollars. In 2017, he was a recipient of M&A Advisor’s Emerging Leaders award and in 2022 was named to the executive committee of the Secured Finance Network board of directors.

After several years of serving as assistant general counsel for the Hilco Global, in 2015 Fredericks was recruited internally to work within the firm’s highly successful retail and consumer operating company called Hilco Merchant Resources (HMR). For the next six years, Fredericks helped negotiate a series of large retail inventory transactions while he honed his skills as one of the firms most impressive retail and consumer practice leaders.

As a member of HMR’s leadership team, Fredericks was instrumental in outlining an expanded vision for the practice, which included building, or acquiring, strategic adjacencies within one of Hilco’s oldest and most successful OPCO’s. This included adding an e-commerce platform, retail digital software and related mobile app, expanding the store fixture/fixed asset solutions business, launching direct lending, and acquiring or investing in retail/consumer brands through equity and debt special situation transactions.

In 2021, Fredricks was elevated to president of HMR. In this role he continues to lead the business development efforts, while spearheading many operational and administrative changes designed to provide innovative solutions to help retail and consumer product clients face today’s challenges.

Over the course of his career, Fredericks has provided retail disposition and advisory services throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand. Some of the most notable clients include Express, Lowes, Circuit City, Target, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Toys-R-Us, Saks Fifth Avenue, The Sports Authority, Radio Shack, The Limited, Syms and Filene’s Basement, Zellers, and Hudson Bay Company. Additionally, he was one of the principal architects of the transaction to save Aeropostale in collaboration with Authentic Brands, Simon Property, and General Growth, which served as a framework for future transactions and is remains the model today.

Prior to joining Hilco Global, Fredericks practiced law at Skadden, Arps, Slate Meagher & Flom, LLP and, before that, Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, LLP.

Here, Fredericks discusses his journey from corporate bankruptcy attorney to president of HMR, the current state of supply chain challenges and Hilco’s short- and long-term goals.

Please tell us a bit about your career trajectory.

Like so many senior executives who joined Hilco over the years, I see myself as a “reformed” attorney (laughs). Many at Hilco today left traditional law practices to pursue careers in business, seeking to leverage our skills in negotiation and our understanding of bankruptcy and transactional law. For me, the move was driven by a desire to work on a wide range of deals across different industries. At Hilco, the work is always exciting and unique, which pushes you to think out of the box.

I joined Hilco Global in 2011 from Skadden and I haven’t looked back since. After graduating from Temple University Law School in 2004, I continued my education, and completed my post graduate work at St. John’s University where I received a master’s degree in bankruptcy law. Post-graduation, I then began my legal career at Young Conway in Delaware.

At Young Conway, I represented debtors, secured and unsecured creditors, statutory committees, indenture trustees, purchasers, Chapter 11 trustees, and others in connection with complex bankruptcy proceedings, out-of-court restructurings, and other transactions. After four years I had an opportunity to join Skadden right in the middle of the 2008 financial crisis that resulted in the Great Recession. Having cut my teeth working for retail clients at Young Conway, I quickly became a “go to guy” at Skadden and was assigned to many retail clients, including Mrs. Fields Cookies, Mervyn’s Department Stores, and Circuit City.

While Mrs. Fields successfully reorganized, Circuit City and others were not as fortunate. Although it was certainly a tumultuous time for the world, I was thrilled to be one of three principal attorneys responsible for managing such a large retail case as Circuit City, including more than $1.1 billion of inventory and approximately $500 million of other assets. Circuit City was, when it filed in November of 2008, one of the largest retail bankruptcies ever.

In many ways, the Great Recession helped accelerate my learning curve and my career. I was working for two outstanding partners, Greg Galardi and Chris Dickerson, and assigned to Circuit City, an assignment where they gave me a great deal of responsibility. I was still a young lawyer, and I was thrilled to be given such an incredible opportunity. It required me to truly understand how to maximize value for creditors. I dug into everything by working closely with company management and their financial advisors to learn where to find pockets of value within such a large retail chain. I recall being impressed by how the large retail liquidation firms like Hilco operated, and how they used data to understand and ultimately arrive at the precise values to maximize financial return the company.

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