It may well come down to differing definitions of what constitutes a partner but however a firm structures itself, almost a third of PPB Advisory (PPBA) partners will no longer enjoy the cache the term confers once their company is formally absorbed into the professional services collectivate of PwC on August 1, 2018. Sources revealed yesterday that while 30 of PPBA’s 33 partners will be moving to PwC,…
International insolvency and restructuring firm Borrelli Walsh has temporarily shelved plans to establish an Australian office in the wake of PwC’s purchase of PPB Advisory (PPBA). A source close to the firm told Insolvency News Online that the Hong Kong-headquartered firm had been about to sign a lease for premises in Sydney when news broke about the PwC takeover of PPBA, details of which were revealed exclusively by INO in: Merger: PPB…
Ask a judge to extend the convening period and he or she will generally want to know if the books and records are in the applicant’s possession and answering in the negative can jeopardise the chances of the extension being granted. Yet the BDO trio appointed voluntary administrators (VAs) of Jamie’s Italian Restaurant Group recently cajoled four extra months from the courts despite what Federal Court…
A fresh judgment was produced by the Supreme Court of West Australia last week that constitutes a win for Pitcher Partners WA partner and Westgem Investments liquidator Bryan Hughes in his marathon dispute with secured creditor Commonwealth Bank over the date of Westgem’s insolvency. Specifically, the court was asked to decide whether a Quickbooks data file saved to a USB stick constituted “books and records” and was therefore admissible. Initially there’d been been no…
Earlier this week it was reported that Clive Palmer was seeking to block the sale of PPB Advisory (PPBA) to PwC but our sources report that the initial application for interim freezing orders against PPBA founder Steve Parbery and partner Michael Owen was dismissed late last Friday afternoon and withdrawn before it was due to be heard yesterday. Overnight Palmer – believed to be holidaying in Europe – said…
Creditors of the failed Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group (Australia) are likely to go without a dividend the Federal Court heard yesterday, as voluntary administrators (VAs) BDO made an ex-parte application to extend the convening period for the second meeting of creditors by four months. It’s been widely reported that prior to it being placed in VA last month, BDO and KordaMentha had helped negotiate a sale…
Now PwC’s takeover of PPB Advisory has been endorsed by PPBA’s partners, the market’s attention will inevitably shift to the remaining independents operating at the top end – KordaMentha, McGrathNicol, Ferrier Hodgson and FTI Consulting. Does a similar fate await those remaining? SiN’s mail is that McGrathNicol has already fielded informal expressions of interest. Executive chairman Peter Anderson however wasn’t giving anything away. “We continue to…
Around midday yesterday the majority of the partners of PPB Advisory decided that staying single was a less attractive proposition than an arranged marriage with a professional services behemoth. As a consequence, 28 of the equity holders in the PPB Advisory Unit Trust duly voted to merge with PwC, ending PPBA’s 35 year history as an independent insolvency and restructuring practice. According to a source…
As SiN revealed exclusively last month, a PwC takeover of PPB Advisory (PPBA) is well progressed but the latest mail is that there’s tension aplenty among PPBA’s ranks thanks in part to the very limited number of partnerships on offer. While neither firm would confirm it yesterday, well informed sources advise there are as few as half a dozen partnerships being offered in the deal,…
Stratos Legal has released its numbers for insolvency appointments for first quarter 2018 and they show that while some firms that dominated 2017 are off to a similarly buoyant start this year, others that finished on top in 2017 are lagging. Mackay Goodwin for example, which led the list of voluntary administrations (VAs) in NSW at the end of last year with 35, is currently not…