Apple Tree Life Sciences, Inc. and its affiliated debtors are more than six months into a jointly administered Chapter 11 case in Delaware, locked in a restructuring defined less by trade debt than by a dispute with their own majority limited partners. The Debtors — a biotechnology venture capital enterprise whose Cayman fund, ATP Life Science Ventures, L.P., holds interests in fifteen portfolio companies once valued near $6.5 billion — filed on December 9, 2025 after the Rigmora LPs, funds tied to the family trust of Dr. Dmitry Rybolovlev that own roughly 98% of the partnership, refused to honor approximately $106 million in capital calls, starving the portfolio companies of committed funding (Harrison First-Day DeclarationDkt. 18). A December 5, 2025 Delaware Chancery decision ordered specific performance of more than $96 million in unpaid calls, but the amount remains unpaid, and the Debtors were unable to secure replacement outside capital, which they attribute to KYC and sanctions-adjacency concerns stemming from Mr. Rybolovlev's Russian ties (Mandarino CRO DeclarationDkt. 25). Perry Mandarino of B. Riley Restructuring Services was installed as Chief Restructuring Officer to navigate the estate.
The prepetition capital stack is unusually clean at the debtor level: the corporate debtors carried no secured debt, and the single tracked secured facility — a Hercules Capital first-lien loan secured by the Fund's equity in commercial-stage portfolio company Braeburn Inc. — sits at a non-debtor subsidiary (Capital StructureDkt. 18). The claims register reflects that structure, with one secured claim and twelve small unsecured claims totaling roughly $204,000.
Postpetition, the case has turned on financing and on the parallel Cayman Islands winding-up proceeding that the Rigmora LPs commenced. The Debtors moved in February 2026 for interim and final approval of a combined DIP and cash-collateral package anchored by a proposed $65 million Oaktree Capital delayed-draw superpriority term loan, but the motion drew a substantive Rigmora objection and was taken under advisement; no interim or final financing order has been entered, leaving the estate without court-approved new-money DIP authority even as operations continue under funding orders that channel intercompany loans to the portfolio debtors. The Rigmora LPs remain active objectors across the docket, most recently lodging a limited objection to the retention of supplemental Cayman Islands counsel that itself flags the broader fight over Fund-asset indemnification and a contested $3.06 million flat-fee application (Rigmora Limited ObjectionDkt. 891).
Operationally the estate is stable but contracting. Monthly operating reports for the period ending May 31, 2026 show the operating debtor Apple Tree Life Sciences posting a modest net profit on $5.5 million in monthly receipts, while the partnership debtor, ATP Life Science Ventures, reported roughly $52 million in May disbursements against minimal receipts and a $6.8 million net loss, reflecting continued funding of portfolio companies (Partnership MORDkt. 889; Operating Debtor MORDkt. 890). No plan has been filed — the plan-confirmation track remains at a no-action stage — and the path forward is gated by the unresolved DIP motion, the Cayman trials on loss of substratum and loss of confidence in the general partner scheduled for June and July 2026, and a General/Status hearing set for July 10, 2026 followed by a fee-application hearing on July 22, 2026.
