Acterna emerges from bankruptcy after only five months

Only five months after filing for bankruptcy, Acterna Corp. yesterday announced it has emerged from Chapter 11 protection, having swapped its debt for equity and converted from a publicly traded company to a private entity.

Under the terms of the reorganization, senior secured debt holders in the Germantown-based maker of communications testing equipment will receive 100 percent of the company's equity through a debt-for-equity swap. Acterna went into bankruptcy with $680 million in bank debt. It emerged with about $190 million.

With the full support of our senior debt holders we decided [the swap] was a necessary step and voluntarily followed...