Guggenheim Corporate Funding, LLC, Orpheus Holdings LLC, Stellar Funding Ltd., and Orpheus Funding LLC v. Valerus Compression Services, L.P.

465 S.W.3d 673, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS 4129, 2015 WL 1870289
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 23, 2015
DocketNO. 14-13-00809-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 465 S.W.3d 673 (Guggenheim Corporate Funding, LLC, Orpheus Holdings LLC, Stellar Funding Ltd., and Orpheus Funding LLC v. Valerus Compression Services, L.P.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Guggenheim Corporate Funding, LLC, Orpheus Holdings LLC, Stellar Funding Ltd., and Orpheus Funding LLC v. Valerus Compression Services, L.P., 465 S.W.3d 673, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS 4129, 2015 WL 1870289 (Tex. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinion

OPINION

Sharon MeCally Justice

This appeal arises from the trial court’s judgment, following a bench trial, rescinding a 2009 amended warrant agreement involving Valerus Compression Services, L.P., Guggenheim Corporate Funding, LLC, Orpheus Holdings, LLC, Stellar Funding Ltd., and Orpheus Funding LLC (collectively, Guggenheim). Valerus filed the underlying suit seeking rescission of the amended warrant due to its factual mistake about the parties’ mutual intent in executing the original warrant agreement. Guggenheim appeals and asserts that (1) the trial court erred by holding the parties’ original and interim warrants were ambiguous, (2) the trial court erred by finding in favor of Valerus on its mistake theories, (3) there is legally and factually insufficient evidence to support Valerus’s - mistake claims, (4) the trial court erred in granting judgment for Valerus because the record conclusively establishes that Valerus bore the risk of mistake, and (5) the trial court erred in denying Guggenheim’s counterclaim for breach of contract and attorney’s fees. We determine that (1) the warrants at issue were ambiguous, (2) Valerus’s unilateral mistake claim is supported by legally and factually sufficient evidence, (3) Val-erus did not bear the risk of mistake, and (4) the trial court did not err in denying Guggenheim’s counterclaim for breach of contract and attorney’s fees. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.

I. Background

The Original Warrant

Valerus, a gas compression limited partnership that is a capital-intensive business, needed a cash influx in 2006. In August, Valerus entered into a $165 million credit agreement negotiated with and funded by Guggenheim Corporate Funding (GCF). In return, Valerus proposed to issue GCF a warrant to purchase shares in Valerus at a fixed price (the Original Warrant). 1 During the negotiations, Valerus was represented by outside counsel Stephenson Snokhous & Fournier (SS & F) and investment banking firm Sanders Morris Harris (SMH). 2 Guggenheim was represented by *677 Jeffrey Nichols, who moved to Greenberg Traurig, LLP, during the pendency of the transaction.

The parties, including outside counsel and investment bankers, exchanged numerous emails and redlined-versions of the Original Warrant during a very short period of time before the transaction closed. One of the major issues between the parties was that GCF sought protection from dilutive events by requesting a blanket 3.5% interest in Valerus calculated at the time of exercise of the Original Warrant. Valerus objected, asserting that the original deal term sheet contemplated that GCF would receive a 3.5% interest in Vale-rus calculated at the time of the closing of the deal.

The parties ultimately agreed that GCF would receive a five-year warrant term that specified the number of shares to which GCF would be entitled and provided GCF limited dilution protection, i.e., the right to receive additional shares beyond the initially agreed amount for certain narrowly defined events. Under the final terms of the Original Warrant, GCF had the right to purchase a minimum of 954,-292 Valerus shares at $0.01 per unit at any time until August 10, 2011. In 2008, Vale-rus split the Original Warrant into three warrants (the Interim Warrants) so that the warrant could be divided among three Guggenheim entities: Orpheus Holdings, Stellar Funding, and Orpheus Funding. Again, GCF remained the administrative agent for Orpheus Holdings, Stellar Funding, and Orpheus Funding. The provisions of the Original Warrant remained substantively the same in the Interim Warrants. 3 Valerus repaid Guggenheim under the terms of the credit agreement in 2007 by entering into a larger credit agreement with another lender.

Valerus’s Negotiations with Investors Raises Questions About the Warrants.

In late 2008 and early 2009, under pressure from its new lender, Valerus again found itself short of capital and began seeking equity infusions. Because of the difficulty in obtaining equity financing, Valerus also considered the option of bankruptcy during this time period. Valerus began negotiating with a third party— Metalmark Capital Holdings LLC — for a sale of Valerus’s equity in 2009. 4

Valerus’s general counsel, Dawn Born Cunningham, conducted the negotiations on behalf of Valerus. SMH was again involved as Valerus’s investment banker. Valerus was also represented by outside counsel, King and Spalding, during the discussions with the Metalmark investors. In connection with those discussions, the dilution protection afforded Guggenheim in the Interim Warrants became an issue of concern to Metalmark. Specifically, Met-almark’s counsel concluded that if Guggenheim had dilution protection for equity is-suances to third-party investors such as Metalmark, then the proposed Metalmark transaction would entitle Guggenheim to more shares upon exercise of the Interim Warrants; Metalmark wanted to structure the transaction so that the Valerus stakeholders, not Metalmark, bore the cost of those additional shares to Guggenheim.

Valerus Seeks to Confirm Intent of Original Warrant

Because she was uncertain about the dilution protection provided in the Interim Warrants, Cunningham sought to confirm as a factual matter what the parties’ origi *678 nal intent had been regarding dilution protection. She had not been employed by Valerus at the time the Original Warrant was executed, so she spoke to Valerus’s Chief Financial Officer Ruben Kendrick, who had been involved in the 2006 transaction. Kendrick understood the Original Warrant language provided Guggenheim with an undilutable 3.5% equity interest in Valerus. The record reflects that Co-Chief Executive Officer Mike McGhan could neither recall nor was he ever aware of the specifics of the dilution protection afforded in the Original Warrant; he had left negotiating the specifics of the 2006 deal with Kendrick and Valerus’s investment bankers. And Co-Chief Executive Officer Chet Erwin, although admittedly aware in 2006 of the nature of the financial transaction with GFC including the dilution protection provided in the Original Warrant, could not recall the specifics of the deal when asked about it by Cunningham in 2009. 5

Cunningham asked her contact at Sanders Morris Harris about the 2006 Guggenheim transaction, but this individual was unaware who at Sanders Morris Harris had worked on the 2006 deal. Cunningham also reached out to Valerus’s attorneys — Jim Stephenson or Julie Fournier at SS & F — who had been involved in the GFC transaction that resulted in the Original Warrant. But these attorneys could not shed light on the original intent regarding dilution protection; they told Cunningham if they could find any files regarding the transaction, they would forward them to her. Cunningham did not. receive any files from outside counsel regarding the transaction.

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465 S.W.3d 673, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS 4129, 2015 WL 1870289, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/guggenheim-corporate-funding-llc-orpheus-holdings-llc-stellar-funding-texapp-2015.