Raistone, the company that called for the investigation, and that had facilitated First Brands’ short-term borrowing, derived 80% of its revenue from First Brands and has already cut roughly half of its employees. The O’Connor hedge fund unit owned by UBS is facing such significant losses that Cantor Fitzgerald is now trying to renegotiate the terms of its acquisition of the business.

Jefferies is facing redemption requests from investors who had money in a hedge fund arm of the bank, Point Bonita Capital, which had a quarter of one of its portfolios — some $715 million — tied to First Brands. The situation is a particular threat to the reputation of Jefferies because the bank had also helped First Brands sell a significant chunk of its long-term loans over the past decade.

During the first bankruptcy hearing, a lawyer who said she represents certain directors, officers and owners of the business, Erica Weisgerber, argued the collapse was largely caused by “macroeconomic factors and other headwinds that were outside of management’s control.” She denied the allegations against the company and management and said they would be addressed at the appropriate time.

At the center of the drama is the elusive owner and CEO of First Brands, Patrick James, who creditors have been scrambling to get a handle on in recent weeks. The few public records that mention James indicate that he grew up in Kuala Lumpur and came to the US to attend the College of Wooster in Ohio. When he took over the bar on campus, Ichabod’s, the student newspaper reported that back in Malaysia he had run “his own disco service, supplying lights, music, and DJ’s for the annual parties of large firms.”

Since the bankruptcy, an independent board committee has been investigating roughly $2.3 billion in off-balance sheet financing and looking into competing claims to some of the company’s inventory due to “irregularities” and the potential “commingling” of collateral backing its main asset-based lending facility and other inventory-backed loans.

After the Chapter 11 filing, the lawyer for one creditor, Evolution Credit Partners, said that his client was repeatedly caught off guard by the information coming out of First Brands, at one point learning that some of the collateral tied to his client’s loans was also pledged to different First Brands lenders.