Sound advice in difficult times

Financial collapse is an inescapable risk of doing business. The boom in credit lending over recent years has come to an end and many businesses are facing difficult times, creating an increased need for focused and timely advice on managing insolvency risks.

Buddle Findlay’s depth in the insolvency marketplace is obvious from a brief glance at our recent work.  Our advice is proactive and pragmatic in this contentious area of commerce.  Over the years, we have worked on some of the biggest liquidations, receiverships, restructurings and finance company failures in New Zealand, and regularly advise on cross-border insolvency issues.

Clients and services

We are able to offer insolvency law services leveraged off regional knowledge and national networks.  Our clients include the major players in the insolvency marketplace: PricewaterhouseCoopers, KordaMentha, Deloitte, McGrath+Nicol and Grant Thornton.  We advise a wide range of financial institutions on a regular basis, assisting them with recovery and restructuring work.  We also advise government departments on policy and legal issues and statute drafting.

A significant part of the team's work involves acting for banks and trustee corporations in relation to borrowing groups and public issuers whose financing facilities need to be restructured as a result of their poor financial condition.  This often involves a substantial corporate restructure of the borrowing group.  Since in most cases these types of restructure are successful, the details of the parties involved must necessarily remain confidential.

The bulk of our work has a creditor focus, but our interest and commitment in the broad areas of restructuring, insolvency and workouts mean we can offer the full range of services including:

  • Advising banks, trustees and financial institutions on corporate restructurings, debt moratoria and standstills
  • Advising financial institutions and other creditors on receiverships, liquidations, voluntary administrations, and creditors’ compromises, including pre-appointment reviews, demands and preparation of appointment documents
  • Advising New Zealand receivers and liquidators on domestic receiverships and liquidations including the provision of fully resourced high level litigation support
  • Assisting insolvency professionals on investigative accountant assignments
  • Advising foreign creditors and working co-operatively on foreign-originated insolvencies such as chapter 11 proceedings, liquidations and administrations
  • Advising banks, trustees and financial institutions on debt for equity swaps
  • Advising on multi-creditor priority disputes
  • Advising directors on liability through the insolvency process
  • Acting and advising on a wide range of insolvency related litigation assignments, including wrongful trading claims, insolvent transactions and securities, and directions applications for receivers, liquidators, administrators and creditors

Recent work

  • Advising the administrators of Whitcoulls and Borders (NZ)
  • Advising the receivers of Matarangi Beach Estates
  • Advising the receivers of Equitable Mortgages
  • Advising the trustee in respect of the receivership of South Canterbury Finance
  • Advising the receivers of Allied Nationwide Finance
  • Advising receivers of Cadmus Developments
  • Advising the receivers of certain companies in the St Laurence group
  • Advising the receivers of Vision Securities
  • Advising the receivers of Rural Portfolio Investments and Rural Portfolio Capital
  • Advising the receivers of stages 2 and 3 of the Kawarau Falls development in Queenstown
  • Advising the administrators, receivers and liquidators of the CEA group, the owner of over 20 pubs and bars throughout the country
  • Advising the lender and receivers of Kensington Park Properties and the associated Part 5 Insolvency Proposal by director, Patrick Fontein
  • Advising lenders in the Five Mile development receivership in Queenstown
  • Advising the liquidators of 123 Global and 123 Operations (part of the $1 billion ABC Childcare Group collapse in Australia)
  • Advising the liquidators of Waipawa Finance regarding the $NZ20m finance company fraud
  • Advising the trustee on the Hanover Finance/Allied Farmers debt for equity swap transaction
  • Advising a lender and the receivers on the Feltex receivership
  • Advising a lender and the receivers in relation to SoHo in Ponsonby
  • Advising the lender to and receivers of Capital + Merchant Finance
  • Advising the trustee and receivers in relation to Dominion Finance Group
  • Advising the receivers of Five Star Consumer Finance

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