POWER PLAYERS: Meet the bankers, traders, investors, and lawyers seeing huge opportunities in a wave of bankruptcies

• A wave of restructurings and Chapter 11 filings has put a group of investors, lawyers, and bankers back in the spotlight.
• Distress investing, which looks to take advantage of bankruptcies and other high-risk situations, struggled to find opportunities for years.
• More opportunities and flow are also likely to come the way of Wall Street’s distressed-debt desks.
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The coronavirus has slammed global economies and sending company revenues plunging.

But the chaos is an opportunity for a group of advisers, traders, and investors who have been waiting years for a big shakeout.

Retailers including JCPenney and Neiman Marcus have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, along with energy names like Chesapeake Energy and Whiting Petroleum. The parent company of Chuck E. Cheese, the family fun center known for its playgrounds and skee-ball games, has also filed for bankruptcy protection.

As the economic fallout spreads, more opportunities are coming to the lawyers and bankers who advise troubled companies. There’s also likely to be more flow for Wall Street’s distressed-debt desks, which make markets in bonds and loans trading at discounted prices, as well as bankruptcy claims, litigation events, and other more complex and special situations.

Business Insider has spent the recent months cataloging the power players who are set for a big boost. Here are the firms and people you need to know.

Restructuring advisers

• Inside the rush to staff up restructuring pros at top advisory firms like Moelis and Evercore

• POWER PLAYERS: Meet 20 Wall Street restructuring bankers who will sort out the defaults and bankruptcies of the coronavirus crisis

• 10 lawyers who navigated the biggest bankruptcies in history are seeing a boom in business thanks to a restructuring surge

Distressed debt trading heats up

• Power brokers of distress: Meet the Wall Street stars making millions trading busted bonds, bankruptcy claims, and other fire-sale securities

• RBC is snapping up key hires in distressed-credit trading as Wall Street preps for a feeding frenzy

• Morgan Stanley hired a top trader away from Deutsche Bank in distressed credit - an area primed for a boom as corporate debt gets crushed

Credit investing frenzy

Foto: Source: Heidi Gutman/Getty Images; Apollo Global Management; John Lamparski/Getty Images; Blackstone Group; Ruobing Su/Business Insider

• Goldman Sachs just hired Kurt Hoffman, an expert in distressed situations and bankruptcy, to join a trading unit known for some of the bank's most lucrative deals

• PIMCO has raised $5.5 billion for private credit funds despite a hellacious March - and is telling investors it's the best opportunity in a decade

• Meet the 10 Wall Street power players picking through up to $1 trillion in distressed debt to bag huge returns

• There's more than $10 billion waiting to pounce on the struggling real-estate sector. Distressed debt tied to a trendy Brooklyn hotel could be one of the first hospitality opportunities.