Shaun McKinnon: Goodbye Grant Thornton, hello BDO. As revealed by iNO last month, Shaun McKinnon has joined BDO after more than seven years at Grant Thornton. Confirming the move this week BDO national head of restructuring Andrew Fielding said McKinnon had joined “as a new advisory partner in the firm’s Brisbane office, specialising in providing Corporate Finance and Restructuring services with a focus on the…
Grant Thornton CEO Greg Keith. Grant Thornton’s Paul Billingham. The roll of registered liquidators – currently standing at 653 – is losing a pair of veterans in the form of Grant Thornton’s Greg Keith and Paul Billingham, both of whom are planning to persist in professional life without the benefit or the burden of a license to liquidate. While the pair’s intentions have been no…
Squire Patton Boggs’ Amanda Banton. An interesting stoush has broken out between Arrium deed administrators (DAs) KordaMentha and Arrium shareholders seeking to publicly examine former director Colin Galbraith. Back in May a Registrar of the NSW Supreme Court issued an examination summons to Galbraith on the application of two shareholders represented by Amanda Banton from Squire Patton Boggs (SPB). Banton’s involvement indicates there’s likely a…
Hall Chadwick’s Steve Gladman. There’s nothing like the whiff of an appointment precariously clung to to bring out the competition. The aroma of opportunity, mingled with the reek of WIP slipping from a rival’s grasp – it’s catnip to ambitious IPs. In our latest review from the theatre of appointments lost, Hall Chadwick’s Steve Gladman is sniffing the wind and wondering if he’s at risk…
PCI Partner’s John Melluish. PCI Partners’ John Melluish might soon find himself burning the midnight oil, if such an archaism can still be deployed to describe working long hours, after accepting an 11th hour engagement to prepare solvency reports for tennis legend Ken Rosewall. The octogenarian one time grass court maestro is attempting to fend off efforts to recover almost $3.5 million in payments received…
John Kukulovski. Andrew Ngo. In the final months of 2015, a most irregular meeting took place between two senior partners of Jirsch Sutherland and a team of ASIC officers. Information obtained by iNO shows that the aim of the November 24, 2015 meeting was to canvass issues relating to a supposed “confession” made by Andrew Ngo, a former Jirsch director who joined Mackay Goodwin in…
dVT’s Suelen McCallum. Identifying who will ultimately act as expert solvency witness for Clive Palmer in his defence of claims brought by Queensland Nickel’s (QN) general and special purpose liquidators is turning out to be less straightforward than iNO originally assumed. After reporting last week that Pitcher Partners’ Perth chief Bryan Hughes had been named in the Queensland Supreme Court as Palmer’s preferred nominee to…
Many will have seen the 12th ASIC Corporate Insolvency Update land in their email inboxes yesterday but iNO wonders how many clicked on the first case study, which details, without naming names, a curious story about a wedding to illustrate the extent of the precautions ASIC expects liquidators to take when assessing potential threats to their independence. Independence is always a hot topic and this…
Pitcher Partners WA chief Bryan Hughes. After an understandably extensive search Clive Palmer has found an insolvency practitioner willing to step into the role of expert witness vacated last month by Peter Dinoris. Dinoris’s voluntarily cancellation of his registration as a liquidator came into effect on June 29, less than two weeks after AFSA announced on June 17 that it had accepted the former Vincents…
Michael Hodge QCImage: www.hiredgun.com.au The ARITA National Conference concluded yesterday after two days characterised by variety, colour and the balance of the event’s content. Interested in the emergent role of the chief restructuring officer (CRO)? None other than Mohsin “Mo” Meghji was on hand, recounting in an absorbing Q&A his experience as CRO of iconic US department store Sears Holdings and Toys ‘R’ Us. Wanting…