Cynthia Plunkett
Principal Consultant
Mrs. Plunkett is a Principal Consultant at Applied Business Strategy. She has 12 years of experience providing financial advice to clients across a range of industries, including numerous real estate assets, media and entertainment providers, and telecommunications, among others.
Out-of-Court Restructuring: Mrs. Plunkett has represented unsecured lenders to a distressed public real estate CDO company, re-underwrote three portfolios totaling 80 loans, including whole loans, mezzanine, preferred equity and ground lease interests to reflect current market conditions, and modeled CDO cash flows to determine CDO losses, potential cash flows available for recoveries and covenant compliance. She represented unsecured lenders to a distressed residential and commercial development where she led a team which analyzed builder lot take down contracts, home inventory, costs to complete, available remedies in contracts, and commercial uses for vacant parcels.
In-Court Restructuring: Mrs. Plunkett was financial advisor to the debtors of Brown Publishing Company (Chapter 11) where she prepared bankruptcy schedules and statements and monthly operating reports. She served as financial advisor to the Unsecured Creditors Committee of Lyondell Chemical Company where she analyzed debtor-in-possession financing, debt pre/post filing, commodity pricing and market dynamics, and court motions. She was responsible for developing a complex model to analyze creditor recoveries by legal entity. She served as financial advisor to the Vermont Department of Public Service regarding FairPoint Communications where she analyzed five-year business plans including revenue drivers, assumed cost savings, capital expenditure plans, regulatory settlements and management’s ability to forecast and execute.
Conducted underwriting due diligence and valuations on commercial real estate for the acquisition or financing of pools of loans including site inspections, sponsor evaluations, cash flow modeling, market analysis and asset/loan risk assessment and valuation. For Pembrook Capital, a real estate management and development company with a total capitalization of over $1.5B, Mrs. Plunkett underwrote over $72 million in senior debt and preferred equity for properties in New York, Denver and Chicago. For Summer Street Advisors she provided due diligence and valuation services to clients acquiring or investing in commercial real estate. She has provided desktop and/or full site inspection underwriting analysis for approximately 80 assets. In her early career she worked for Merrill Lynch Capital/GE Real Estate where she underwrote over $500 million in transactions for the development or acquisition of office, retail, industrial, multi-family and office condo properties in the form of senior debt, mezzanine debt and preferred equity.
She began her career with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in New York, NY in Real Estate Business Advisory Services. In this role, she specialized in modeling and underwriting due diligence for investment banks on all asset types including office, retail, hotel, casino and multi-family properties. She performed due diligence on securitization pools (CMBS, CDO) by verifying databases of key property and loan terms on behalf of investment banks for use by the rating agencies. She participated in the audit of American Financial Realty Trust’s (AFRT) acquisition of bank branch properties in two separate transactions, and participated in the 2003 year-end audit of Whitehall Funds.
Mrs. Plunkett has Masters of Science in Finance (May 2002) and a Bachelor of Business Administration, Accounting (May 2002), Cum Laude Honors from Texas A&M University in College Station, TX. She is a Certified Public Accountant in the State of Texas.