First Brands Group, LLC and 111 affiliated debtors are in the solicitation phase of a Chapter 11 plan before Judge Christopher M. Lopez in the Southern District of Texas, with a combined disclosure-statement adequacy and plan confirmation hearing set for July 28, 2026. The Debtors filed their voluntary Chapter 11 petitionsDkt. 1 between September 24 and 28, 2025, pointing to tariff and geopolitical pressure on a global aftermarket automotive parts supply chain, a debt-funded acquisition build-up across 25-plus brands, and mounting obligations under third-party factoring, SPV-backed revolving facilities, and equipment master leases with Onset Financial.
The estates were stabilized by a $4.4 billion senior secured, superpriority, priming DIP facility — $1.1 billion of new money alongside a $3.3 billion roll-up — provided by an ad hoc group of first and second lien creditors and approved on an interim basis by the Interim DIP OrderDkt. 217 before a final order was entered in November 2025. The Moore DeclarationDkt. 22 lays out roughly $11.6 billion of prepetition funded debt and lease exposure layered across first and second lien term loans, a Bank of America-led ABL, SPV-backed revolvers (Aequum, CarVal, Evolution), $2.3 billion of third-party factoring, and $1.88 billion of Onset master leases that the Debtors reserve rights to recharacterize as financings.
Creditor friction has tracked the financing path. Aequum Capital Financial II LLC moved to enforce its adequate-protection stipulation, alleging a borrowing-base deficiency near $14.5 million and unauthorized inventory exchanges under the , and later sought to prohibit or condition use of alleged cash collateral; the ABL agent and the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors separately objected to the final DIP package before it was approved.
The case is now advancing toward confirmation. The Debtors filed a Joint Chapter 11 Plan and solicitation-version disclosure statement in mid-June 2026, and the court conditionally approved the disclosure statement and voting procedures in service of the July 28, 2026 combined hearing. Contested and administrative matters continue to move alongside the plan track, including a stipulated limited stay-relief setoff in favor of Royal Bank of Canada under the RBC Stipulation and Agreed OrderDkt. 3026, a reduced Brownsville, Texas lease footprint under the Cal-Southwest StipulationDkt. 3030, an extension of the SEC's nondischargeability complaint deadline to September 25, 2026 under the SEC StipulationDkt. 3033, and an adjourned hearing on Crown Equipment's motion to compel lease assumption now noticed for July 15, 2026 under the Joint Notice of AdjournmentDkt. 3023.
