POWER PLAYERS: Meet 20 Wall Street restructuring bankers who will navigate the defaults and bankruptcies of the coronavirus crisis

Evercore; Perella Weinberg Partners; Moelis; Lazard; Samantha Lee/Business Insider

While the true rush of restructurings and reorganizations is yet to come, many of the top restructuring investment bankers have already been swamped with calls.

• The US is facing an unprecedented wave of corporate distress from the Covid-19 pandemic.
• A $2.2 trillion stimulus package will help slow the bleeding for some, but many will still wind up in default.
• While the true rush of restructurings and reorganizations is yet to come, many restructuring investment bankers have already been swamped with calls.
• Business Insider is compiling a list of top bankers who will help navigate corporate defaults, restructurings, and bankruptcies.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

In the coming months, the US is about to be leveled with an unprecedented wave of corporate distress.

As the coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc across the country last month, shutting down industries and confining consumers to their homes, companies scrambled for cash to cope with the loss of business.

Corporations drew down nearly $200 billion in revolving credit lines in March, according to research by Goldman Sachs.

While the $2.2 trillion stimulus package passed by lawmakers - which includes $350 billion in loans to small businesses and $500 billion in aid to corporations - will help slow the bleeding for some, many will still wind up in default and unable to pay their debts.

Credit strategists at UBS recently said that more than $1 trillion in corporate debt may be distressed, and ratings agencies downgraded $560 billion worth of investment-grade bonds last month.

The investment bankers who thrive during crises and recessions are about to take center stage. When companies find their balance sheets in disarray, restructuring bankers are hired to clean up the mess and clear a path toward viable operations.

While the true rush of restructurings and reorganizations is yet to come, many of the top investment bankers in this arena have already been swamped with calls as companies grapple with how to stay solvent.

Business Insider is compiling a list of the top restructuring investment bankers in the US. In putting together this group, we scoured industry league tables and spoke with bankers and executive recruiters that know the industry best.

Bulge-bracket banks, which help advise on raising and issuing debt and thus don't typically provide companies with restructuring advice, weren't considered, nor were turnaround consulting firms that specialize in retooling operations at distressed firms.

All of the bankers on this list have decades of experience to their name, meaning they've soldiered through multiple recessions. Some helped navigate some of the biggest and messiest bankruptcies and restructurings of the financial collapse in 2008 - Lehman Brothers, AIG, General Motors, and Chrysler.

In short, there's very little they haven't seen.

But the crisis unfolding in 2020 is new to everyone - even the most veteran execs on Wall Street.

The coronavirus will likely accelerate work on energy companies and retailers that were already seeing weakness, restructuring attorneys have told Business Insider. But the current situation, where healthy businesses have seen their cash flow evaporate overnight and a return to normalcy can't be predicted, is a new frontier.

"In my whole career, I've never been asked to review a financial model that says what happens if there's zero revenue. And frankly, I have never even thought about that concept," said Michael Kramer, the founder and CEO of Ducera Partners, a restructuring boutique.

Projecting scenarios where a company sees a 20% or 30% decline revenues? De rigueur. But a 100% falloff?

"That's what were dealing with now," said Kramer, who's been a restructuring investment banker for three decades.

The revenues will come back, for some - but the question remains as to when, and what the financial cost will be in the interim.

Here is Business Insider's list of the top US restructuring bankers, who will help manage the corporate defaults, restructurings, and bankruptcies of the coronavirus crisis.

Note: The list is sorted alphabetically by company name.