Corporates

BRI Ferrier – partners at odds over departure

BRI Ferrier’s Peter Krejci. BRI Ferrier’s Brian Silvia. One thing you can say about veteran insolvency practitioner and BRI Ferrier NSW partner Brian Silvia is that he’s not the type to go quietly, which is probably why the sound of equity holders’ heads butting has reached iNO’s ear, all the way from BRI’s offices atop Australia Square. iNO’s intelligence network has learned that Silvia and…


Cor Cordis boss to pay Last Lap costs personally

Cor Cordis Melbourne partner Bruno Secatore. The 28 plus year long liquidation of Last Lap Pty Ltd makes one wonder just how many insolvency practitioners will get to take a lap around this seemingly eternal liquidation, but for the moment we’ll focus on the incumbent, Bruno Secatore. Last week the Federal Court handed down its decision in Secatore, in the matter of Last Lap Pty…


New intel sees liquidator adjourn compromise vote

Tauro Capital director Simon Ward. Hall Chadwick’s Richard Lawrence. Creditors of Simon Ward’s failed start-up accelerator Tauro Capital have received a potential reprieve with liquidator Richard Lawrence advising that next Monday’s meeting to vote on Ward’s Spartan compromise would be adjourned. ” … additional information and documentation has been provided to my office since the Reports were issued to creditors and this information indicates potential…


KPMG partner pushes privilege envelope

KPMG’s Peter Gothard. KPMG’s Peter Gothard has helped push a court to explicitly define the powers of liquidators in respect of claims of legal professional privilege and the outcome will not have pleased the non-executive directors (NEDs) of failed education provider Vocation Limited. In Whittenbury v Vocation Limited (No 2) [2020] FCA 653 Federal Court judge John Middleton last week ruled that Vocation’s NEDs have…


Jirsch clings to defector’s dozen

Marcus Watters – A dozen jobs the price of joining Hall Chadwick. With the departure of Marcus Watters, Jirsch Sutherland has lost a senior Queensland operative to rival Hall Chadwick but it’s clung tenaciously to the departee’s dozen or so appointments, ensuring whatever worthwhile WIP might reside in those jobs has been kept out of the coffers of Jirsch’s fiercest foe. Watters moved to Hall…


Globetrotting engines a problem for Virgin VAs

Deloitte’s Sal Algeri. Images published this week of Virgin planes barricaded behind vehicles at Perth Airport are a reminder that the arrival of insolvency practitioners at the table doesn’t mean every player will surrender their chips. As iNO has been learning, huge, hard-to-house shaped planes are a pain to possess.  When it comes to ransoming aviation assets, the jet engines routinely removed for maintenance and…


Lessors go feral as VAs extend liability exemption

Deloitte’s Sal Algeri. It was lessors gone feral in correspondence between legal representatives of aircraft owners and Virgin’s voluntary administrators (VAs) last week as the owners of the (mostly) grounded fleet sought to extract agreements and undertakings in exchange for refraining from challenging the VA’s application to extend their exemption from personal liability for aircraft lease payments to May 26. The lessors are owed around…


Virgin – VA’s rivals riled and claiming conflicts

Deloitte’s Vaughan Strawbridge. KordaMentha’s Mark Korda. As significant a news story as Deloitte’s appointment as voluntary administrators (VAs) of Virgin Australia Group is, it pales beside the unsubstantiated scuttlebutt upon which iNO routinely latches like a vengeful lamprey with a surfeit of monarchs. Simply put, the mail going around is that KordaMentha co-founder Mark Korda is less than impressed at being overlooked for this historic…


Max Brenner: casting vote needed for ex-VA fees

McGrathNicol’s Barry Kogan. BDO’s Andrew Sallway. You have to hand it to former Max Brenner Australia voluntary administrator (VA) Barry Kogan and Kogan has to hand it to the company’s current liquidator, Andrew Sallway. At the most recent meeting of creditors of the insolvent confectioner, which has been in liquidation since October 2018, the McGrathNicol partner was on hand to explain to creditors why they…


Pitcher Partners’ NSW Insolvency Division defects

Ex-Pitcher Partners’ Paul Weston. DW Advisorys Anthony Elkerton. Pitcher Partners NSW has been left temporarily without an insolvency capability after its entire team defected to DW Advisory. Speaking to iNO yesterday, outgoing Pitchers partner Paul Weston said after 10 years he was ready to move out of the mid-tier multi-disciplinary space into a boutique insolvency-focussed environment. “I love the game and I love the people…