Thursday 2 November, Sun City, South Africa
Various tools are being used to address financial distress in the SA market, including informal restructuring and Business Rescue, however these processes can be drawn-out and costly depending on the complexity and conditions of the restructure. Section 155 of the Companies Act could be an alternative tool, however it is rarely used. With the number of companies in distress and the economic environment continuing to be depressed, is there now a place for Section 155?
We held a round-table discussion, where participants in the breakaway session could bring forward their experiences with the various tools to tackle financial distress, consider whether Section 155 could have been used as a preferable route, and what the sticking points are that has prohibited the use of Section 155 in previous matters.
INSOL Tokyo – Second INSOL International Financiers Colloquium
Monday 11 September 2023, Palace Hotel, Tokyo
The second INSOL International Financiers Colloquium took place on Monday 11 September in Tokyo. As in 2022, the meeting started with at joint lunch with the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Colloquium delegates. The programme then covered restructuring around the world and hot topics.
International Financers Group Webinar: Recent developments in financiers’ co-operation – or not!
Wednesday 26 April 2023
On Wednesday 26 April, the IIFG ran a webinar on transactions where intercreditor actions created divides. The speakers discussed the tactics to gain advantage and whether or not this might be leading to a new period of unity. The content is free of charge to financiers. To view the Video on Demand (VOD) please contact Susannah Thomson:
INSOL London– Inaugural INSOL International Financiers Colloquium
Wednesday 29 June 2022, Grosvenor House Hotel, London
We held our inaugural INSOL International Financiers Colloquium on Wednesday 29 June 2022 at JW Marriot Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London alongside the INSOL London 2022 conference.
The meeting started with a joint lunch with our Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Colloquium delegates followed by an afternoon programme looking at “hot topics” of relevance to the cross-border finance community.
International Financiers’ Group Ancillary Webinar: Blue Sky Flights: Turnaround of Distressed Airlines
This session was arranged by the International Financiers’ Group to provide valuable knowledge regarding actual and potential workouts of airlines as a result of the global pandemic.
The speakers sharing this knowledge have extensive experience in the aviation sector both as financiers to the industry and as advisors to the financiers and other parties. The speakers will discuss the current and future environment for the industry generally and specifically relating to distressed situations. Hear about the complexity of dealing with a wide range of stakeholders during the turnaround of an airline and challenges and potential solutions for funding and restructuring.
Turnaround of Distressed Airlines Discussion Forum
A forum to discuss the issues raised in this webinar took place on Wednesday 3 November 2021. The recording of those discussion can be viewed below:
International Financiers’ Group Interactive Forum: Banking failures and impact on stakeholders
This session, hosted by EY, looks at the impact and administration of failed financial institutions. In the session, we consider how the regime for dealing with financial institution failures has evolved as a consequence of the global financial crisis, how that drives the behaviours and approach of representatives of those institutions and how that can impact other financial institutions when interacting with the failed entity.
Leading practitioners from EY speak to their own experiences when dealing with failed financial institutions:
Steve Hair, INSOL Fellow, NatWest Group
James Hutt, EY
Maggie Mills, EY
Ajay Rawal, EY
Bogdan Ioan, EY
INSOL Financiers' Group Interactive Forum: COVID relief measures - a case of extend and pretend?Thursday 15 October 2020
The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has created, and continues to pose, significant financial challenges to global companies with many facing solvency issues.
The Forum saw Mahesh Uttamchandani, Global Practice Manager, World Bank Group provide an initial overview followed by a panel discussion and interaction with online attendees.
Moderator: Mark Sutton, Commonwealth Bank of Australia
Mahesh Uttamchandani, Global Practice Manager, World Bank Group
Simon Granger, FTI Consulting
Anke Heydenreich, Attestor Capital
Sue Atkins, JPMorgan
The panel discussed what the future could look like for financiers as relief measures such as government support schemes, loan deferrals, and rental moratoriums are withdrawn. The panel discussion also considered how an increased number of restructuring cases will be dealt with, and what countries will be impacted as a result of shrinking economies.
For further information, please contact Susannah Thomson.
2019
INSOL International Asia Financiers’ Group Launch Event, Hong Kong, 17 October 2019 5pm - 7.30pm
Kindly hosted by Allen & Overy (Hong Kong) 9th Floor, Three Exchange Square, Central, Hong Kong.
Top industry experts provided an interesting and relevant discussion on the ‘Changing Face of Asia Workout’ drawing on their recent experiences in restructuring in key markets in the region.
Chair: Guy Isherwood, KPMG
Panel: Angelina Bopp, Standard Chartered Bank
Cosimo Borrelli, Borrelli Walsh
Chris Gradel, PAG
Chris Page, The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited
Richard Woodworth, Allen & Overy
Joint Seminar INSOL International Financiers’ Group / INSOL Europe Financiers’ Group, London, 2 December 2019, 5 - 7.30 pm
Kindly hosted by NatWest, 250 Bishopsgate, London, EC2M 4RB
‘Activist stakeholders – saints or sinners?’
Discussing the impact of insurers and credit default swap holders on restructuring.
Panel: Nick Ram, Lloyds
David Beckett, SC Lowy
Simon J. Baskerville, Latham & Watkins
Martin Gudgeon, PJT & Partners
For further information email [email protected]
2018
INSOL International / INSOL Europe Financiers Group Joint Seminar
‘Directors - who wants to be one!’
This highly successful second annual meeting of the joint INSOL International / INSOL Europe Financiers’ Group took place in London on 20 November, chaired by John Willcock, Editor of Global Turnaround.
The stimulating discussion was hosted by Commonwealth Bank of Australia, whose Mark Sutton, Senior Executive Manager, Group Credit Structuring, opened the proceedings. The theme was the package of measures floated by UK regulators in response to a number of controversial business collapses recently, including the retail group BHS and the outsourcing giant Carillion.
The suggested responses include strengthening corporate governance pre-insolvency, and potential new powers to investigate and pursue directors over companies that have been sold or dissolved.
This prompted two strands of discussion; given these changes, who would want to be a director? And more generally, who should play the role of ringmaster in the kind of complex restructurings now being seen with multinational companies boasting increasingly complicated capital structures?
The panel consisted of Patricia Godfrey, a partner in the banking and finance team at CMS; Andrew Shaw, a civil servant in the UK’s Insolvency Service who currently heads its team preparing for Brexit; Ed Boyle, a restructuring and insolvency partner with KPMG; Julian Verden, Stemcor Group’s managing director for Europe; and Richard Stables, EMEA head of restructuring at Lazard.
The debate was brought to a conclusion by Alastair Beveridge of AlixPartners, past Co-Chair of the INSOL Europe Financial Institutions Group, and the joint group now looks forward to a similar event next year.
2017
INSOL Europe Financial Institutions’ Group and INSOL International Lenders’ Group Joint Seminar 2017
11 October 2017
‘What will next time look like?’
On 11 October 2017 INSOL Europe’s Financial Institutions Group and INSOL International’s Lenders Group held an inaugural joint seminar at the offices of The Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
After a quick introduction by Matthew Phipson of Commonwealth Bank, the presidents of INSOL Europe (Radu Lotrean) and INSOL International (Adam Harris) gave very warm welcomes to all and endorsed strongly the collaboration between the two organisations.
The panel discussion centred around the INSOL International Lenders’ Group current project, being led by Stephen Foster of Hogan Lovells, with the title “What will next time look like?”.
The chair of the panel, Professor John Kay (a renowned economist) started the discussion with his view on the different approaches taken to regulation in 1) financial services (written by lawyers and based on prescriptive rules and regulations) and 2) utilities (written by economists and based on structures and incentives) – he felt that the economists approach had probably been more effective, albeit not perfect. He felt that the financial crisis in 2008/9 had demonstrated a failure in regulation and he was concerned that adding more regulation may not be the answer and may have unintended consequences.
Stephen Foster then turned the discussion to the new IFRS9 rules and the move from provisioning on incurred losses (current rules) to lifetime expected losses (new rules from January 2018). He stated that for 1 in 6 banks this would result in a predicted need of a 50% increase in capital base and that for 80% of banks it would result in higher provisions. The likely consequence was that banks would have to sell positions early (or potential commence enforcement earlier) which would provide opportunities for secondary buyers. He also mentioned the restrictions in certain leveraged transaction documents of either white list (restricting lenders ability to sell) or need for borrower approval which might act to impede attempts to sell and result in an impasse.
Alistair Dick (PriceWaterhouseCoopers) took a slightly different tack talking about how the rules would impact companies/borrowers – he was concerned that it might actually restrict the availability of credit to companies at precisely the time they needed it most and that this could be very problematic. The inconsistent approaches in different countries to dealing with borrower and ultimately bank liquidity challenges was recognised as an issue generally which has continued since the crisis. Overall he felt that trading of debt positions (which was expected to be a consequence of the new rules) was a good thing for the market and would help with the recycling of capital.
The discussion reverted to regulation with Simon Samuels (Veritum Partners) – in particular the differences between the regulated and un-regulated players. He felt that banks had had more capital than they really needed pre-crisis and were now being asked to increase that substantially – he felt this was an inefficient use of capital. Concerns were raised that Basel IV with its risk weighted floor provisions meant that banks would not only be encouraged (by the rules) to sell bad assets they would also be encouraged to sell good ones. He reminded everyone that IFRS9 was just about recognition of the losses – not about the amount of loss actually incurred – and that any dramatic event could quickly eat up capital reserves because of the way provisions would from 2018 have to be accounted for.