Independence Contract Drilling’s prepackaged Chapter 11 has reached confirmation, with the restructuring transferring ownership to its secured noteholders and preserving the operating business. The Houston-based contract driller entered bankruptcy on December 2, 2024 after weaker natural-gas prices sharply reduced Haynesville activity, Permian demand moderated, and customer consolidation favored larger contractors. Those pressures drove its average working-rig count down from the early-2023 recovery and compressed liquidity against approximately $221.1 million of funded secured debt, including $206.8 million of convertible secured notes and $14.3 million drawn under its ABL facility. A strategic-alternatives process launched in March 2024 did not produce a bid sufficient to repay the secured debt, leading the company to negotiate a consensual balance-sheet restructuring with Glendon Capital Management and MSD Partners, as described in the first-day declarationDkt. 3.

The resulting prepackaged case was designed as a rapid debt-for-equity reorganization rather than a sale or liquidation. The noteholders supported the case with a $32.5 million DIP facility and agreed to exchange approximately $206.8 million of allowed notes claims for all of the reorganized company’s new common stock, subject to dilution by a management incentive plan, plus $7.5 million of exit term loans. The first amended planDkt. 91 left ABL claims and general unsecured claims unimpaired, authorized exit ABL and term-loan facilities, canceled existing public equity without a recovery, and contemplated that the reorganized company would operate privately under a board selected by the noteholder group.

On January 9, 2025, the court approved the disclosure statement and confirmed the plan; the notes class was the sole voting class and accepted the plan unanimously. The confirmation orderDkt. 124 authorized the exit financing, issuance of the new equity, assumption of executory contracts not designated for rejection, and implementation of the plan’s releases and related protections. With confirmation complete, the case’s central restructuring path is no longer in dispute: secured note debt is converted principally into ownership, legacy equity is extinguished, ordinary-course creditor treatment is preserved, and the business proceeds on a deleveraged, privately held basis.