Insolvency Guardian Media Centre
Interserve could go into administration on Friday as the outsourcing group fights to win support for a restructuring plan before a crunch vote.
Shareholders will give their verdict at an emergency meeting on Friday on a proposal put forward by banks and hedge funds, which have offered to forego 485m of the companys 631m debt in return for most of its equity, leaving existing investors with just 5% of the shares.
The Reading-based Interserve employs nearly 45,000 people in the UK and manages a host of public services. It is the largest provider of probation and offender rehabilitation services in England and Wales, and has thousands of government contracts that range from hospital cleaning and school meals provision to maintaining milita…
Read the full article at: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/mar/14/interserve-shareholders-vote-restructuring-plan-emergency-meeting
DAZN Group announced this week that its business division formerly known as Perform Media has rebranded as DAZN Media. The new entity is responsible for handling global media partnerships and will integrate advertisements into DAZNs sports streaming content for the first time.
To assist DAZNs new advertising division, the company also announced the launch of an off-platform network called DAZN+. That product will aggregate data from audiences across DAZN-owned media platforms including Sporting News, Goal, DAZN Player (a video-on-demand sports content platform formerly…
Read the full article at: https://www.sporttechie.com/dazn-advertisement-sports-platform-streaming-revenue/
Executive Summary
The ability to get issues on the table and work through them constructively is critical to having a healthy culture. Managers can normalize productive conflict on your team by using an exercise to map out the unique value of each role and the tensions that should exist among them. Draw a circle and divide that circle into enough wedges to represent each role on your team. For each role, ask: What is the unique value of this role on this team? On which stakeholders is this role focused? What is the most common tension this role puts on team discussions? Answer those questions for each member of the team, filling in the wedges with the answers. As you go, emphasize how the different roles are supposed to be i…
Read the full article at: https://hbr.org/2019/03/an-exercise-to-help-your-team-feel-more-comfortable-with-conflict
(Reuters) – Pier 1 Imports Inc has tapped debt restructuring lawyers to navigate potential negotiations with lenders as it struggles with falling sales, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday, sending shares of the U.S. home furnishing retail chain sharply lower.
FILE PHOTO: The Pier 1 Imports store is seen in Broomfield, Colorado September 17, 2014. REUTERS/Rick Wilking
Known for selling wicker chairs and scented candles, Pier 1 has suffered financial losses amid an increasingly competitive retail landscape dominated by the likes of Amazon.com Inc and Walmart Inc.
Pier 1, which has roughly 987 stores in the United States and Canada, has added debt restructuring specialists at Kirkland & Ellis LLP to a roster of advisers coun…
Read the full article at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pier-1-imports-debtrestructuring-excl/exclusive-retailer-pier-1-taps-debt-restructuring-lawyers-sources-idUSKCN1QV2C6?feedType=RSS&feedName=newsOne
PARIS (Reuters) – French retailer Casino, battling investor concerns over its high debt, vowed to boost profits and cash flow in its core French market and sell off more assets under a three-year strategy plan.
FILE PHOTO: A customer shops in a Casino supermarket in Nice, France, January 15, 2019. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard/File Photo
Investors initially welcomed the plan before some concerns over Casinos cash flow weighed on Casinos shares.
Along with domestic peers such as Carrefour and Auchan, Casino faces intense price competition in its home market as well as challenges from online players such as Amazon.
The company, which had its credit rating cut to junk by Standard & Poors in March 2016, has embarked upon asset sales to reduce its d…
Read the full article at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-casino-results/casino-to-pursue-asset-sales-to-help-cut-debt-idUSKCN1QV0M9
And experts warned that these difficulties come as care homes still struggle with debts from before the credit crunch.
As a result, 101 care homes were declared insolvent in 2018.
Analysts from the accountancy and business advisory firm BDO LLP, which conducted the research, warned that the sector is continuing to suffer from trading difficulties which have been dogging it for almost a decade.
Recent increases in interest rates have also started to ratchet up costs.
Insolvencies in the care home sector has also suffered as a result of the reduced spending by central government.
Payments from local authorities remain the main source of care home fees.
But separate research by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services revealed that l…
Read the full article at: https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1100058/care-home-crisis-funds-cut-rise-in-costs-marie-curie-elderly-health
The Australian arm of Build-A-Bear Workshops has been placed into voluntary administration with ten locations around Australia to close almost immediately.
The much-loved venue gives kids the chance to customise their own toy, and are often used for childrens parties.
The company has 30 stores and other retail outlets around Australia but ten of those will close within the next two weeks.
The stores to close are
Westfield Miranda, NSW
Stockland Greenhills, NSW
Westfield Marion, SA
Logan Hyperdome, QLD
Kawana Shoppingworld, QLD
Mt Ommaney, QLD
Pacific Werribee, VIC
Eastland Shopping Centre, VIC
Garden City, WA
Westfield Carousel, WA
The remaining stores will continue to operate normally, pay staff, and honour gift…
Read the full article at: http://www.kiis1011.com.au/newsroom/build-a-bear-closing-stores-voluntary-administration
New York, yes, Paris, maybe, but you wouldnt think the tiny Welsh town of Blaenau Ffestiniog likely to be the centre of a million-pound art investment fraud.
In fact the Insolvency Service, a government agency connected to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, has wound up two fraudulent art investment schemes, one in Blaenau Ffestiniog, the other in Birmingham. Between them they appear to have abused at least 1.4m of investors money.
Halifax Mannin Ltd, based in Blaenau Ffestiniog, and Birminghams Hey Design Services Ltd were wound up in the public interest on 1st March 2019 at the High Court in Manchester before District Judge Bever. The Official Receiver has been appointed liquidator of the companies.
The two comp…
Read the full article at: https://www.artsandcollections.com/insolvency-service-winds-up-fraudulent-art-investment-companies/
In this guest post Peter Doyle, a former senior IMF economist, argues for the sovereign insolvency regime to be brought in line with that for banks, starting with Venezuela.
Motivation
The prior instalment of this sovereign insolvency blog trilogy concluded that “output foregone” is huge in highly-indebted IMF programme countries with high growth potential.
That is because in such cases, IMF programme design prioritises debt recovery ahead of activity. It imposes exorbitant primary surplus targets, wrecking the balance between primary spending and low taxes that is necessary to realise high productive potential.
Jamaica is a case in point. After a decade of compliance with IMF conditionality, including primary surpluses of 7-9 per cent of …
Read the full article at: https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/03/14/1552543200000/A-preemptive-sovereign-insolvency-regime/
This type of business fraud costs the Australian economy somewhere between $2.85 and $5.13 billion every year. (1) In 2017 alone, there were more than 20,000 phoenix operators in Australia. On average, each phoenix business leaves 44 other businesses in debt. And, phoenix activity jeopardises up to 67,000 employees per year.
Domenic Calabretta, managing director, Mackay Goodwin, said, Directors of companies caught engaging in illegal phoenix activity are subject to fines and even prison terms. With ASIC proactively investigating companies it suspects of fraudulent phoenix activity, the chances of getting caught are high. Accountants and business advisors should encourage their clients to restructure their business or liquidate it legally…
Read the full article at: https://www.accountantsdaily.com.au/sponsored-features/12758-advising-clients-appropriately-to-avoid-illegal-phoenix-activity-a-free-cpd-learning-event
KPMG, the smallest of the Big Four audit and consulting firms, has struck a long-awaited expansion deal by buying one of Australias best-known corporate insolvency firms, Ferrier Hodgson.
The combination will create one of the countrys biggest restructuring, insolvency and forensic advisory practices, with 27 partners and more than 200 staff.
The acquisition, announced today, covers Ferrier Hodgsons Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane offices. Adelaide is still under negotiation.
The combined practice will be jointly led by KPMGs national head of restructuring, Matthew Woods, the newly appointed chairman of the firms Perth office.
KPMG chief executive Gary Wingrove said the rationale for the tie-up was compelling, with KPMG and Ferrier Hod…
Read the full article at: https://thewest.com.au/business/accounting/kpmg-snares-insolvency-firm-ferrier-hodgson-ng-b881135503z
The Australian arm of customisable toy retailer Build-a-Bear Workshop has been placed into voluntary administration, hours after its listed parent company in the US reported a 7.5% drop in revenue and sluggish growth in international markets, partially blamed on the collapse of Toys R Us and issues posed by Brexit.
Matt Sweeny and Gideon Rathner of Lowe Lippman were appointed as administrators of the company yesterday, which is a franchised entity of the US company that opened its first store in Bondi 14 years ago in 2004.
The company has 30 stores and other retail outlets across Australia, with 10 of those set to close over the next two weeks. Those stores include the ones at Logan Hyperdome, Kawana, Mt Ommaney, Werribee, Eastland, Gar…
Read the full article at: https://www.smartcompany.com.au/business-advice/strategy/build-a-bear-australia-voluntary-administration/