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Research · Deal analyses

How we read a deal, shown on real cases

Each document is built from the sworn court filings of one distressed business and laid out for a buyer. Free to download; new ones as cases come through.

Where the numbers come from. A company in Chapter 11 files, under penalty of perjury, its revenue for the last two years and the year to date, every secured lender and unsecured creditor with the amount owed, every lease with the term left, who it paid in the 90 days before filing, and every lawsuit against it in the year before. The sale motion adds the bidder, the price and the dates. That is most of what a buyer needs to decide whether to look closer. What it does not give, profit by location, rent and payroll by unit, the data room, comes only under a non-disclosure agreement with the banker, and each document says so.

Published

Fireman Hospitality Group: ten New York restaurants, $62 million of sales, sold out of Chapter 11

S.M.F. Group Inc. et al. · Chapter 11, S.D.N.Y. 26-11893 · filed August 9, 2026 · 3 pages · docket read through October 5, 2026

Sales grew 13% in 2025 to $62.0 million and were on pace for about $60 million in 2026, so demand was not the problem. Two restaurants produced 40% of sales; Times Square was weakening while Lincoln Center held. Eleven merchant cash advances and twelve lender suits in the year before filing were. The opening bid, $9.5 million cash plus $2.5 million assumed for six of the ten restaurants, paid off the secured lenders and little else: about $2 million a restaurant and 0.23 times sales.

Download the analysis PDF

What each document holds

SectionWhat it showsSource in the court file
SummaryRevenue for two years and the year to date, secured debt, cash-advance debt, the opening bidStatement of Financial Affairs, Schedules D and E/F, sale motion
Revenue by locationEach business, both years, this year's pace, its share of the groupEach company's Statement of Financial Affairs, Part 1
Revenue by areaWhich neighbourhoods or markets are growing and which are weakeningThe same, grouped
DebtEvery secured lender, every cash-advance lender, the largest trade and priority claimsSchedules D and E/F
The bidPrice, assumed liabilities, what it covers, price against secured debt and against sales, the datesStalking-horse motion and order, bidding procedures
Key findingsWhat the numbers say, and what a buyer should check before biddingDHI Capital's reading, each point footnoted
What the public file does not showThe items that need a non-disclosure agreementNamed, so nobody mistakes revenue for profit

Every figure is read from the filings by the same program that runs our alerts, and every line read from a schedule is checked against the total the debtor printed on the form. A hand-entered fact (an address, a press-reported figure) carries a footnote saying so.