Corporate Recovery

Our Corporate Recovery group has achieved a pre-eminent position as one of the leading specialist insolvency teams in the South East, acting across the full spectrum of corporate recovery and insolvency work with particular focus on assisting and supporting insolvency practitioners, banks and asset-based lenders.

The group has particularly strong relationships with a number of banking and finance organisations including Bank of Ireland and Quintain and also has well-established relationships with “Big 4” accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte, as well as a full range of mid-tier firms including Baker Tilly, BDO, Begbies Traynor, Chantrey Vellacott DFK, Grant Thornton, PKF, Smith and Williamson, Kingston Smith & Partners, Moore Stephens and RSM Tenon.

The group also enjoys strong links with a number of independent and smaller practices (both in London and the South East) including James Cowper, Griffins, Wilkins Kennedy, Antony Batty & Company, Hillier Hopkins, MacIntyre Hudson and Geoffrey Martin & Co. 

Growing areas of expertise also include bank advisory work, fraud, asset tracing and Proceeds of Crime Act receiverships.

Recent Corporate Recovery work includes:

• Acting for Bank of Ireland in connection with the insolvency of a large care home provider, dealing with all stages required to place the group companies into administration, and the separate property assets in LPA receivership. The group was central to advising the bank on its strategic approach in this case, which required the need to balance the bank’s position in the context of an insolvent business, with the needs of dealing sensitively with the care homes, their residents and staff. 
  
• Advisors to the joint fixed charge receivers in respect of a large residential/commercial property development in central London. The company’s security (c£9m) was called in by the bank, with the receivers being appointed to manage and ultimately sell the property. A highly complex matter involving a wide range of issues, including the liquidation of the holding company (Guernsey registered), an ongoing dispute with the Right To Manage company, and the notice procedure under the Leasehold Reform Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 (involving in excess of 300 residential lease-holders).      
  
• Acting for the Trustee in Bankruptcy of Scot Young, a property tycoon and former 'fixer' to the ultra wealthy, in a case which has attracted significant media interest in light of Mr Young’s divorce from Michelle Young, who accuses him of hiding multi-million pound assets in offshore accounts to avoid paying a significant divorce settlement. Mr Young's bankruptcy concerns unpaid taxes of nearly £2 million.