🏗️New Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Filing - Elite Equipment Leasing LLC🏗️
Construction company hit by wild fires and project delays files bankruptcy
On September 7, 2025, SoCal-based Reliable Crain Service, LLC (“Reliable Crane”), Elite Equipment Leasing LLC (“Elite”) and five affiliates (collectively, together with Reliable Crane and Elite, the “debtors”) filed freefall chapter 11 cases in … *double checking* … the literally-never-frequented … District of Montana (Judge Hursh).
But, partners, don’t saddle up just yet. The debtors don’t have a strong connection to Big Sky Country. While Elite is organized in the state, the debtors don’t have any real roots there; they’re HQ’d in Anaheim and operate only in CA, TX, NV, and AZ. Entrepreneur, CEO, and 100% shareholder Darrell Shaw would more than likely look less like this around a horse …
… and more like this:
As the Reliable Crane’s name suggests, he’s more of a verifiable construction fella, with 25+ years in the industry and trained and certified to operate big a$$ rigs. It’s a commendable story: in ‘10, he ventured out on his own, founding Reliable Crane with a single … um … crane and $40k. And over the years he grew the biz until he’d had enough, selling the operation to, and subsequently working for, Bigge Crane & Rigging Co. (“Bigge”) in ‘15.
But after eighteen months, Bigge called it quits on the SoCal life and laid Mr. Shaw off, who revived Reliable Crane and went back to working for himself.
Initially, it did general crane work for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power before catching a massive break in June ‘18, landing a contract for the Oakland Las Vegas Raiders’ new stadium in Sin City. And that wasn’t the only score. Since being given new life, Reliable Crane’s been involved in “… some of the largest construction projects on the West Coast …” – including, the St. Louis LA Rams’ and San Diego LA Chargers’ SoFi Stadium, the Wilshire Grand Center, and the Metropolis.
Over the following years, revenue b-b-b-boomed.
Despite the growth, though, the debtors started facing problems in ‘20 after acquiring twenty tower cranes from Bigge (PETITION Note: apparently this industry is incestuous AF). Payments initially required shelling out $90k per month but rising interest rates have since ratcheted them up to $160k per month — not a penny of which goes to principal.
Then, in ‘21, Mr. Shaw acquired debtor Champion Crane Rental, Inc. (“Champion”), but integrating it with the other debtors’ operations proved a challenge, and in the last year, wildfires and construction delays, particularly a twelve-month one on the $5b One Beverly Hills project"(“One Beverly Hills”), gave revenue a major beatdown, although we aren’t told how much.
However, we know the debt stack. Well, kinda. Mr. Shaw submitted a first day declaration, but it’s a disaster. Lenders are listed multiple times, the figures are inconsistent, etc.
But best Johnny can tell, as of the petition date, the debtors have ~$67.9mm in debt outstanding, broken down as follows:
Luckily, the debtors still have a sh*tload on their plate: an $80mm backlog, which includes a stadium for the soon-to-be-relocated Oakland Athletics (another, 😔, loss for Bay area sports fans) and the aforementioned One Beverly Hills. It’s expected that the backlog will carry the company through the bankruptcy process and emergence. Here’s CRO and first day declarant Curt Kroll (of SierraConstellationPartners LLC):
“With these and other projects, the Company can generate sufficient cash flow to pay the secured debt on all assets it intends to maintain. The Company expects to sell or turn over certain underutilized equipment to reduce its debt load. It also intends to restructure or refinance some of the secured debt on its equipment to increase the amortization period and ease the strain on its cash flow.”
So with future projects already in hand, what prompted the filing? Simple: too little cash flow. Given the revenue problems, the debtors’ liquidity ran dry … and they needed ~$1mm to make payroll one day after the September 10, 2025 first day hearing.
Here’s a great take from Mr. Shaw at the first day hearing on what would happen if folks didn’t get paid:
“The union laborers are very, they're kind of like a mob a little bit, where they feel like they work for the union first and then they're moonlighting for me. So even though my name's at the bottom right of their check, as soon as you monkey with any of their pay, they're very apprehensive. And there's plenty of work to go around at other crane companies.”
Basically …
And the union rep? Here was his courtroom response to Mr. Shaw:
To reach payroll, CFI is providing a headline $26mm revolving DIP, composed of (i) a creeping roll-up of CFI’s $23.8mm prepetition claim and (ii) ~$2.2mm in new money … to the extent the borrowing base allows.** But the DIP budget suggests ~$600k of that won’t be made available, at least during the first 13 weeks of the cases.
Apparently not. Notwithstanding the massive >10:1 roll-up, no prepetition liens are being primed, so no other secured parties had a problem and the U.S. trustee made little effort in contesting the DIP.*** And again, if the debtors didn’t receive funding, the business would go up in smoke.
Judge Hursh, therefore, approved the DIP and cash collateral usage, and a payroll catastrophe was averted. Parties will reconvene for a second day hearing on October 3, 2025 at 9am MT.
The debtors are represented by Lesnick Prince Pappas & Alverson LLP (Matthew Lesnick, Christopher Prince, Kaitlyn Husar, Lisa Patel) and Patten, Peterman, Bekkedahl & Green PLLC (James Patten, Molly Considine) as legal counsel, Garrett Stiepel Ryder LLP as special corporate counsel, and SierraConstellationPartners, LLC (Curt Kroll) as financial advisor and CRO. CFI and its equipment-financing-affiliate CCG are represented by Vedder Price P.C. (David Kane, Max DuVal) and Crowley Fleck PLLP (Eli Patten, Michael Kelepperich) as legal counsel.****
*Of the debtors’ $40.8mm in equipment leases spread across ~29 financiers, excluding the debtors’ double count of Celtic Bank Corp.’s separate, acquisition-financing ~$3.3mm claim, the debtors believe only ~$3.3mm are properly perfected.
**The DIP also carries much the same terms as the prepetition ABL facility with an interest rate of prime rate + 2.5% (not less than 5.25%), a 1% annual fee (on the headline number), a 0.23% monthly admin fee on the average daily facility balance, and a 0.15% unused line fee per month on the daily unused portion of the facility.
***The debtors also contracted Rouse Services (“Rouse”) in May ‘25 to appraise the debtors assets. At the time, Rouse appraised the debtors’ ~500 pieces of equipment at a fair market value of $61.9mm and an orderly liquidation value of $53mm, indicating equipment financiers ought to be adequately protected.
****We did promise you more coverage of lower-to-middle market cases so, didn’t we?
Company Professionals:
Legal: Lesnick Prince Pappas & Alverson LLP (Matthew Lesnick, Christopher Prince, Kaitlyn Husar, Lisa Patel) and Patten, Peterman, Bekkedahl & Green PLLC (James Patten, Molly Considine)
Special Corporate and Transactional Counsel: Garrett Stiepel Ryder LLP
Financial Advisor and CRO: SierraConstellationPartners, LLC (Curt Kroll)
Claims Agent: Epiq (Click here for free docket access)
Other Parties in Interest:
Prepetition ABL and DIP lender: Commercial Funding Inc. and Commercial Credit Group Inc.
Legal: Vedder Price P.C. (David Kane, Max DuVal) and Crowley Fleck PLLP (Eli Patten, Michael Kelepperich)