Investments
25Portfolio Exits
2Funds
2About Cyrus Capital Partners
Cyrus Capital Partners, L.P. is a privately owned firm. The firm primarily invests in value stocks employing a fundamental analysis. It invests across the capital structure of leveraged companies throughout their life cycles, including those in financial distress, special situations, arbitrage, and seeks to generate attractive absolute returns that are not correlated to or dependent upon the general equity and fixed income markets. The firm was previously known as Och-Ziff Freidheim Capital Management. Cyrus Capital Partners was founded in August, 1999 and is based in New York, New York with additional offices in London, United Kingdom and Stamford, Connecticut.

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Latest Cyrus Capital Partners News
Mar 27, 2023
Three courts had already rejected an attempt from Lampert and other lenders to wring millions more from what’s left of the former retail giant. Published March 27, 2023 Daphne Howland/Retail Dive Last week the Supreme Court delivered a hard stop to arguments made by former Sears CEO Eddie Lampert and other lenders looking to get more money out of what remains of the beleaguered retailer. For years, it seemed like there was no end in sight for Sears’ bankruptcy process, even though it technically concluded in late 2022 after three contentious years, following decades of struggle. Lampert’s history with the retailer began nearly 20 years ago as an investor, with stints as CEO and board chair. He is now a majority owner of what’s left of it after its bankruptcy filing in 2018 . His hedge fund, ESL Investments, and Cyrus Capital Partners are among lenders to Sears Holdings Corp. Lampert, TransformCo (also known as “new Sears”), and an attorney for ESL and Cyrus, didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story. The case surrounded a claim by lenders, including ESL and Cyrus, that their collateral was undervalued in bankruptcy court. The original decision in August 2019 by Judge Robert Drain was upheld twice on appeal. The lenders calculated that they had $718 million in unpaid debt after first-lien lenders were paid, and because a $433.5 million credit bid fell short of the value of their collateral, they were entitled to more money. Had they prevailed, in addition to potentially wringing hundreds of millions more dollars out of what’s left of Sears, Lampert’s fund and the other lenders cited a section of the bankruptcy code, 507(b), that would have, to the detriment of other creditors, allowed them “a super-priority claim that steps ahead of everybody,” said William Norton, partner at Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, a bankruptcy specialist. The courts’ math Drain, however, found they were owed nothing, and that 507(b) didn’t apply. In their appeal in November of 2019 in district court, Lampert and the other lenders claimed that Drain “applied a hypothetical liquidation valuation, which valued the collateral at hundreds of millions of dollars less than its actual replacement cost — even though no such liquidation actually occurred for the bulk of the collateral in question.” “The bankruptcy court compounded this error by applying a starting ‘net orderly liquidation value’” standard that undervalued their collateral, they also said. This was a middle-of-the-road assessment of the lenders’ collateral, according to Stu Komrower, a partner at law firm Cole Schotz who specializes in bankruptcy and corporate restructuring. Broadly, the three yardsticks available in estimating the worth of creditors’ collateral — in this case, mostly Sears’ inventory — are: retail value, fire-sale liquidation value, or net orderly liquidation value. Drain employed the last one, also known as NOLV, which falls somewhere in between the other two. It reflects the value of inventory sold during an orderly going-out-of-business sale. “So it was a little bit of a ‘split the baby’ in terms of valuation,” Komrower said by phone. “But I think the judge, who is a very highly regarded, very smart judge, took the right approach, and had a practical orientation, with some substantive backup for that practical orientation.” Lampert’s appeals couldn’t overcome that. The Southern District of New York district court, then the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, each in turn endorsed the bankruptcy court’s original reasoning and math. And last week, with the words “certiorari denied,” the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case, leaving Drain’s initial decision intact. Absent a significant or contentious legal issue, or the need to resolve incongruous district-court decisions, the high court wasn’t likely to take up this case, our experts said. And so that is the end of the line for Eddie Lampert, at least for this particular aspect of Sears’ long-running bankruptcy. “It’s done, it’s over. He’s out of there, move on,” Komrower said. “The Supreme Court has spoken by not speaking.”
Cyrus Capital Partners Investments
25 Investments
Cyrus Capital Partners has made 25 investments. Their latest investment was in TeraWatt Infrastructure as part of their Series A on September 9, 2022.

Cyrus Capital Partners Investments Activity

Date | Round | Company | Amount | New? | Co-Investors | Sources |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
9/13/2022 | Series A | TeraWatt Infrastructure | $1,000M | No | 26 | |
7/12/2022 | Series C - II | May Mobility | $111M | No | 10x Group, Bridgestone Americas, Cyrus Capital Partners, Karma Automotive, LG Technology Ventures, Maven Ventures, Millennium Technology Value Partners, Mirai Creation Fund, Next Century Ventures, SAIC, SoftBank , State Farm Ventures, Tokio Marine Holdings, Toyota Tsusho, Toyota Ventures, and Wanxiang | 9 |
4/28/2022 | Series B - II | Sealed | $29.5M | No | 3 | |
1/26/2022 | Series C | |||||
6/24/2021 | Series B |
Date | 9/13/2022 | 7/12/2022 | 4/28/2022 | 1/26/2022 | 6/24/2021 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Round | Series A | Series C - II | Series B - II | Series C | Series B |
Company | TeraWatt Infrastructure | May Mobility | Sealed | ||
Amount | $1,000M | $111M | $29.5M | ||
New? | No | No | No | ||
Co-Investors | 10x Group, Bridgestone Americas, Cyrus Capital Partners, Karma Automotive, LG Technology Ventures, Maven Ventures, Millennium Technology Value Partners, Mirai Creation Fund, Next Century Ventures, SAIC, SoftBank , State Farm Ventures, Tokio Marine Holdings, Toyota Tsusho, Toyota Ventures, and Wanxiang | ||||
Sources | 26 | 9 | 3 |
Cyrus Capital Partners Portfolio Exits
2 Portfolio Exits
Cyrus Capital Partners has 2 portfolio exits. Their latest portfolio exit was Clearwire on July 09, 2010.
Cyrus Capital Partners Acquisitions
1 Acquisition
Cyrus Capital Partners acquired 1 company. Their latest acquisition was Flybe on October 19, 2020.
Date | Investment Stage | Companies | Valuation Valuations are submitted by companies, mined from state filings or news, provided by VentureSource, or based on a comparables valuation model. | Total Funding | Note | Sources |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
10/19/2020 | Asset Sale | 1 |
Date | 10/19/2020 |
---|---|
Investment Stage | |
Companies | |
Valuation | |
Total Funding | |
Note | Asset Sale |
Sources | 1 |
Cyrus Capital Partners Fund History
2 Fund Histories
Cyrus Capital Partners has 2 funds, including Cyrus Select Opportunities Fund II.
Closing Date | Fund | Fund Type | Status | Amount | Sources |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
6/25/2020 | Cyrus Select Opportunities Fund II | 1 | |||
6/25/2020 | Cyrus Select Opportunities Fund II |
Closing Date | 6/25/2020 | 6/25/2020 |
---|---|---|
Fund | Cyrus Select Opportunities Fund II | Cyrus Select Opportunities Fund II |
Fund Type | ||
Status | ||
Amount | ||
Sources | 1 |
Cyrus Capital Partners Team
4 Team Members
Cyrus Capital Partners has 4 team members, including current Founder, Managing Partner, Stephen C. Freidheim.
Name | Work History | Title | Status |
---|---|---|---|
Stephen C. Freidheim | Founder, Managing Partner | Current | |
Name | Stephen C. Freidheim | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
Work History | ||||
Title | Founder, Managing Partner | |||
Status | Current |
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