Ed Clingman Profile

Ed Clingman is a lawyer, certified public accountant and former business executive. He is a 1978 graduate of the University of Virginia Law School and also earned his B. S. in Accounting from the University of Virginia, where he was first in his class. He is certified by the AICPA in Financial Forensics. 

Ed is a former partner of the law firm of McGuire, Woods, Battle & Boothe (now McGuire Woods), where his broad-based practice included securities law (private placement, public offerings and periodic reporting), joint ventures, partnerships, financing, business acquisitions, real estate and construction law.

Ed joined Best Products Co., Inc. in 1993 as a senior officer involved in legal and business matters—including bankruptcy management, legal, insurance, risk management, real estate and facilities management. In 1997, he was selected by the Unsecured Creditors Committee to become President and CEO of Best with the responsibility of leading the company’s liquidation and related wind-down.  Ed turned the Best Products case into one of the country’s most successful retail liquidations by returning over 98% to unsecured creditors against projections of 68%.

In 1999, Ed Clingman joined Teresa Hanger in founding Clingman & Hanger. That same year, he also became a member of the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Audit Committee of Bradlees, Inc. during the period of the company’s emergence from bankruptcy in February 1999 until confirmation of its plan of liquidation in its second bankruptcy in December 2001.

Building on the success of the Best Products case, Ed has led successful wind-downs through Clingman & Hanger, in a number of other significant bankruptcy cases, including Venture Stores, Inc., Fruit of the Loom, House2Home, and more recently, Value City Department Stores, ESCADA (USA) and BI-LO. Though the structure of the case may vary, distribution projections have been exceeded in virtually every case Ed has managed, leading him to be considered one of the country’s top wind-down managers.

Through other consulting engagements with the likes of Staples Communications, AMF Bowling, and FFR Trust (formerly Fairfield Residential LLC), Ed is also known for developing creative, yet practical solutions for various types of business challenges.

Click on the Case Studies tab for a more detailed description of some of Ed’s engagements.