"Windstream doesn't own any assets, they belong to Uniti. Thats why restructuring all that debt will be impossible. I do not see Windstream ever emerging from bankruptcy."
The creditors have to decide whether Windstream is worth more liquidated (chapter 7) or restructured (chapter 11). It's not worth much in liquidation, even if you could liquidate an incumbent local exchange carrier. There'd be the proceeds from sale of equipment and that's about it. From comments here, it sounds like a lot of that stuff is obsolete. If Windstream owned its own fiber, liquidation would bring more money.
So the creditors are better off keeping Windstream as some sort of going concern.
The idea is that the new Windstream would leave bankruptcy with no more debt than it could reasonably handle.
The rest of Windstream's debt will just be eliminated; those creditors will get new Windstream stock instead and they'll become the new owners. (The old shareholders will almost certainly be wiped out).
I'm an ILEC customer so I don't know much about the CLEC side. From reading comments here, that part of the business sounds like it's in much deeper trouble than the ILEC.
Yes, the ILEC's pretty c-appy but folks around my town are sort of dependent on Windstream. Windstream could have a viable ILEC business after chapter 11. Hopefully it would have new management and a new board.
Windstream's CLEC business sounds like a bigger mess, operationally, and, more importantly, it's got a lot more competition. So maybe parts of the CLEC will be sold or just shut down.
What do other folks think?