Brown Butler worked closely with Black Solicitors during the reorganisation process. Vickers-Lee Holdings is an independent, family-run business in Yorkshire that supplies products for the capture and containment of waste and recyclables. The company, which also owns both CPR Manufacturing Limited and Cromwell Polythene Limited, is helmed by directors and shareholders James and Debbie Lee. As a result of the share reorganisation, directors’ sons Angus, Alex and Henry have become shareholders in the business.

Brown Butler advised on the reorganisation with a team comprising tax director Craig Hughes and director and principal Steve Hornshaw.

Recent news reports regarding Marks & Spencer’s shop closures have left other high street retailers feeling fearful about profits.

With plans to close 100 stores by 2022, in what M&S bosses are calling a re-organization of the entire retail chain, the aim is to turn a third of its in-store sales into online sales.

This of course is another blight in the midst of a global retail infection, predominantly caused by the propagation of online buying. Below Finance Monthly hears Your Thoughts on M&S’ shop cuts and the potential consequences across the UK.

Joe Rabah, Managing Director for EMEA, RMG Networks:

With the recent announcements that M&S is said to close 100 stores and that House of Fraser could close up to half its stores, it’s no secret that the UK high-street is under pressure as a result of changing shopper behaviour and a drastically altered customer journey.

For retailers to survive and adapt they must embrace technology to create meaningful, immersive retail experiences. However, it’s not enough for retailers to invest in technology without doing so in a purposeful manner and knowing the solutions that they invest in are going to be specifically relevant to their business and their customers. It’s essential that retailers use platforms that create frictionless purchasing experiences for their customers, enabling them to increase customer engagement that is tailored to individual customer needs and habits. In doing so they will drive customer loyalty and provide consistent cross-channel experiences. Today’s solution is not tomorrow’s in retail, and technology can either allow a brand to pivot so that it can adapt quickly to changing customer expectations, or it can lock a brand into delivering stale customer experiences.

While we don’t know what the future holds, retailers must understand whether the technology they are investing in suits a clearly defined purpose and is adaptable enough to suit their future needs and their customers’ evolving customer expectations, and consider this before making any technological investment.

Julian Fisher, CEO, Jisp:

With retailers, such as Marks & Spencer, facing large declines in high street spending as consumers turn to online shopping, bricks and mortar stores must evaluate how they are interacting with customers. We are a nation of shoppers and shopkeepers, but convenience is a key factor in driving potential instore customers online where they have access to a wealth of information, deals and personalised offers. To keep customers in stores, the high street shopping experience must provide this instantaneous access to information and personalisation through handheld devices. It is essential that retailers increase investment in areas such as mobile technology to bring the shop floor into the 21st century.

The restructuring decisions that Steve Rowe is making will have the desired effect with these future-thinking closures a controlled choice with M&S in charge of its own destiny. Customer service and quality of merchandise has been a hallmark of M&S for years.

Looking ahead, it will be innovation and the ability for stores and their staff to connect and personalise their brand with new customers who are armed with devices and a world of information and content. If they don’t they may succumb to the fate of others who have been unwilling to embrace changing consumer behaviours.

Iain Wells, Investment Manager, Kames Capital:

Will M&S shares be up or down tomorrow when they announce their results? I don’t know. Expectations are certainly low with earnings forecast to be down nearly 10%. The bad weather in the first quarter, that kept shoppers at home, has been so widely discussed that it can surely provide no negative surprises. With a dividend yield of 6.3%, and a price earnings ratio 9.8x, results that are in-line with expectations could see the shares rise.

While the share may rise on the day, more important is what evidence there is that the structural pressures that have impacted M&S over many years are easing. On this I am less confident. It is not that M&S is a “bad” retailer, just that the retailing world is changing around it faster than it can adapt, and the process of adaptation is painful for shareholders.

The key issues that M&S are trying to address include:

• Too many stores - too much is of the wrong size or in the wrong location. Addressing this is usually costly
• The increase in competition, particularly in clothing, and much of it from on-line players
• The shift to on-line which puts downward pressure on the store profitability, even if the on-line sale is made by M&S rather than a competitor
• Competitiveness of the food offer. With much of the growth of the business centred around food getting this right is crucial.
• Stabilisation/growth in market shares

Everyone has a view about M&S, what they are doing well, and what they are doing badly. As a national institution management have the misfortune of having to carry out their plans on a very public stage.

Terry Hunter, UK Managing Director, Astound Commerce:

The news of the M&S store closures is yet another dagger in the heart of the British high-street. The retailer plans to move a third of its sales online, and intends to instead have fewer, larger clothing and homeware stores in better locations. If the company is going to recover from its recent sales slump, it is imperative that it has an exceptional online offering. It will now be competing more directly than ever with the likes of Amazon and Asos.

Online retailers like Asos take advantage of efficient and nimble business models by avoiding the costly overheads associated with running bricks-and-mortar stores and as a result, they can afford to invest a great deal in offering websites which give the best possible user experience. Although M&S is cutting back on some of these overheads, it is not as experienced or effective in the ecommerce arena as the pureplay online retailers. M&S needs to make sure its in-store offering works in harmony with its online strategy. The retailer struggled over the Christmas period last year – basic logistical errors caused a real headache as next day delivery targets were missed – a type of error you don’t see the likes of Amazon making. A truly omnichannel approach is the only way that this British retailer is going to recover, let alone flourish.

One factor that is working against M&S is that its customer base has an ageing demographic. The company has been making efforts for some time to attract a younger shopper and an improved online offering could potentially aid this. A younger tech-savvy shopper is more likely to make purchases online rather than instore. One of the key battles for M&S will be ensuring that its predominantly over-50 female shopper continues to visit the new stores, whilst also becoming more active in buying products from its website. It is a difficult road ahead.

Paul Fennemore, Customer Experience Consultant, Sitecore:

M&S faces a similar challenge to many other retailers – in trying to find out exactly who its target market is, and what they want, ahead of them wanting it. Evolving a customer experience strategy on the basis of anticipating needs in this way will require a very sophisticated, multi-channel, cross platform customer experience strategy in place, each of which must feed the other to create a total experience that is worth more than the sum of its parts.

One way it could go about reinventing itself online is to go beyond personalisation – which all brands claim to be able to do – and move to individualisation. This will deliver content to its customers based on specific data points. This will help set it apart from the other online retailers, and help it provide its customers with an unexpected, satisfying experience which will keep them coming back.

By creating a robust individualisation strategy, focusing on customers as individuals, rather than using the more traditional broad personas, M&S will be able to attract a younger, mobile-first demographic, who value individual interactions with brands. The challenge here will be to ensure that experience is consistent across all channels, including mobile, online, social media, and in-store. Integration of its systems will be key for M&S going forward, otherwise customer data will be siloed, meaning they won’t be able to track a customer’s journey efficiently. This will ultimately lead to a worse customer experience, as it won’t be consistent.

Ben Holmes, Head of Display, Samsung UK:

Yet again, we’re seeing more boarded up shop fronts on the British High Street with M&S recently announcing a series of store closures. We understand the predicament M&S is in as it sets about ‘modernising’ its business to ‘meet the changing needs of customers;’ but at the same time, we do believe that bricks and mortar establishments can be part of the modernisation effort rather than being the sacrificial lamb to more investment in online. When every retailer is battling for the same pound spent, businesses definitely need to be more innovative in how they sell to their shoppers. The old rules no longer apply when it comes to in-store retailing in an age where shoppers expect personalisation, digital connectivity and high impact experiences. We’d encourage retailers to experiment with digital technologies like video walls and touchscreen kiosks because these technologies have been proven to drive engagement and sales. Physical stores are definitely not secondary to online retail estate because there is a real opportunity for companies to transform their stores into experiential destinations – think brandship not just flagship. Until retailers start delivering genuine, digital experiences, we can unfortunately expect more casualties.

Adam Powers, Chief Experience Officer, Tribal Worldwide London:

This latest announcement is yet another indicator of a malaise that’s been hanging over UK retail stalwarts for the past few years. The inexorable growth of online commerce means that a strategic rethink must be undertaken for businesses that want to successfully trade on the UK high street. Actually, this is a global challenge, but the UK is one of the most advanced ecommerce markets in the world and so we are seeing the outcomes here earlier. Like Mothercare, M&S is clearly trapped in the middle of a market where they are being squeezed at both ends. Cheaper or more fleet-of-foot competitors are doing product innovation around food (Aldi/Lidl) that was once an M&S sweet spot. Away from food, key competitors have high performing home delivery infrastructure like Next or ASOS that leave M&S looking lumbering and out of touch with modern customer expectations. Additionally, M&S are getting squeezed from the top as style needs for their target demographics are increasingly met by internet optimised clothing competitors. The wrapper around all of this is really customer experience - online and instore, this is the modern retail battleground. From the outside looking in, it appears that nobody at M&S is looking at customer experience holistically, with a mandate to drive radical, customer-centric transformation and the initiatives underway, such as store closing, look piecemeal. What’s particularly worrying about M&S delivering a turnaround, is that the way things are emerging must be highly unsettling for the workforce, the very people who are at the frontline of delivering customer experience.

John Taylor, Co-CEO, Duologi:

The internet has made it easier than ever before for customers to compare prices and shop around online, without ever having to leave the comfort of their homes. This subsequent decrease in footfall to the high street has led to a number of high-street brands opting to close stores where footfall has dwindled to save on overheads, with M&S being just the latest example of this.

However, this does not mean that the high street is dying – far from it. Rather, we’re seeing a shift in the retail landscape, wherein the retailers set to thrive will be the more flexible, agile brands which can offer customers a choice in how they shop and pay for products.

To accomplish this, savvy smaller retailers are taking the time to optimise their online presence to sit alongside their bricks-and-mortar offering, engaging customers who no longer shop with a brand due to ongoing store closures.

This flexibility also extends to the payment process itself. With consumer confidence currently low, flexible finance options such interest free credit, 0% finance and buy-now-pay-later can support shoppers at the time of purchase – particularly for big-ticket items – which can both engender consumer loyalty and increase average basket values.

Charles Brook, Partner, Poppleton & Appleby:

We should be careful not to jump to conclusions. There is undoubtedly an acceleration of change in the retail market with some large towns experiencing retail depletion more than others. Statistics released this week in Yorkshire put Doncaster, Barnsley and Huddersfield towards the top of those hit hardest by a combined net loss of more than 1,000 retail outlets in the past 12 months.

Marks & Spencer is shifting the focus of its in-store offering away from homewares and clothing to place emphasis on and serve its online offering in a more contemporary manner. This is a sensible response to the evolved way in which even its traditionally conservative-minded customers now shop and, having such a significant leasehold estate, and it needs to plan well ahead. I think it highly unlikely that M&S would try to foist a Company Voluntary Arrangement on its landlords.

Perhaps this is a good time to deliver seemingly bad news. The M&S Board may be gambling on the market and its major shareholders (if not the public at large) recognising that whatever issues have hit other big names, M&S is reading the trading conditions and charting its future trading strategy with typical caution.

Rick Smith, Director, Forbes Burton:

Retail is going through a transition, and a transition that M&S should have seen coming, especially with the likes of Ebay / Amazon etc dominating the way people shop, but unfortunately for all those concerned (towns, cities, the high street, communities, shoppers, staff) they didn’t. High street shopping is now all about the experience.

However, it’s not just the blue-chip retailers fault, it’s a collective from councils, property owners and communities. This should have been recognised and adaptive investment should have been put in place a long time ago. The problem we have now is that it’s all knee jerk and I’m not convinced they are going about it the right way. Closed high street shops is simply demoralising for the community and once the reality of it sets in it’s quite scary when you start thinking more about it.

M&S haven’t kept up with the times and they need to look at online sales especially for the struggling clothes and homeware sections. While they’ve been able to do well compared to their competition by attracting females to their clothing range, they have failed to find their proper place in the market on this side of the business and need to get this totally right. Also, many of the stores need modernising which is difficult when profits are dropping and there’s no money for investment.

Their food range is nice and appeals to a small, specialised section of the population. However, competitors have caught up with their food offerings and often for much less with most now doing a ‘finest’ or similar range. A small percentage do also believe the bad press around packaged meals, and this combined with the offerings from the competitors has had a knock-on effect because there has been no differentiator in terms of quality. M&S food is of very good quality, but it is now evident with these closures that they do not have the resources to convince the public otherwise.

Emma Thompson, Head of Strategy, Visualsoft:

E-retail is booming at the moment, with consumers currently spending a staggering £1.2 billion a week online. As such, high street retailers need to make the most of this opportunity to ensure they have the best chance of success. Those who fail to do so can expect to fall behind more digital-savvy competitors, as we have seen with the likes of Toys ‘R’ Us and Maplin.

While it still remains to be seen whether Marks and Spencer’s store closures will help boost performance, it is heading in the right direction by using this restructure to support the growth of its website. This forward-thinking attitude could see the retailer maximising its growth potential, as the majority of the UK’s top retailers that neglect their online offering risk stunting their growth as a result.

For Marks and Spencer to effectively focus its efforts, it needs to not only improve its website’s user experience, but also utilise a variety of online channels to boost revenue. Social media in particular should be a priority, given that a growing proportion of e-retail sales are driven through the likes of Instagram and Facebook. If the retail giant prioritises these areas, it can expect advantageous results to follow.

Leigh Moody, UK Managing Director at SOTI:

The decision to close 100 stores over the next four years is a bold decision from one of the UK’s leading retailers and highlights the shift in focus from high-street to online in order to keep up with evolving consumer trends.

In response to this change and to support its online growth plans, M&S will need to consider how they integrate their mobility management strategy across their entire on and offline operation to ensure they are streamlined, data is protected and customer demands are met.

As M&S becomes more digitally enabled across all channels including mobile and social, mobility will be key in influencing the shopping experience, touching every part of the value chain which in turn, will lead to further opportunities for cost savings and buying efficiencies.

We would love to hear more of Your Thoughts on this, so feel free to comment below and tell us what you think!

To find out more about insolvency and restructuring proceedings in the UK, Finance Monthly reached out to one more professional operating within the sector. Garry Lock is a partner with Quantuma - a leading restructuring and insolvency practice, delivering partner-led solutions to businesses and individuals facing financial distress, with offices in London, Southampton, Marlow, Watford, Brighton and Bristol.

As a professional whose practice spans sectors from retail to recruitment, what are the sectors that experience insolvency and restructuring proceedings more than others in the UK?

Those sectors that would experience the highest number of failures would be those with low barriers to entry and low, or no regulation. Businesses which have a high-fixed cost base and rely upon high-volume and low-margin sales also struggle when the economy is unstable. An example would be a retail chain of shops or restaurants.

Construction always has a moderate level of failure because contractors often have to fund projects for considerable periods of times, whereby the profit element is typically not earned until the project is completed. Project holdups, not always the fault of the contractor, can create a cash flow crisis or, in a worst case scenario, the failure of a company.

An understanding and appreciation of the working capital cycle for a business, as well as having a sufficient working capital base to support the turnover, is key. The significance of understanding margins, costings and break-even are often overlooked.

Sectors that also experience high-failure rates often struggle with an overview of the company finances to the point where decisions are made, which decisions tend to be more reactive than proactive. Smaller business in particular often don’t survive a bad trading year.

The continuing recovery in the UK economy has resulted in corporate insolvency falling down steadily in 2015– how have these trends impacted your practice over the past twelve months?

Quantuma was set up in early 2013 by industry veteran Carl Jackson. In the last 4 years the firm has grown to a 12-partner firm, employing over 100 staff in 6 offices. Our firm has grown when other firms have cut their restructuring teams. Quantuma was ranked in the national top 10, for number of formal appointments during the calendar year 2016. The firm has managed to grow market share in a declining market through its good connections and the hard work of the partners and staff.

Market conditions are very challenging, so with declining numbers of formal appointments you have to adapt your approach and also deliver an excellent service when the opportunity arises. Reputation is very important.

The partners in the firm have a good referrer base, which means that we engage with a wide range of stakeholders and retain a high level of input into the work that is carried out.

The firm has a strong management structure which enables flexibility to make decision and to act quickly when opportunities arise. Maintaining regular contact and an open dialogue with those who refer work to you is vital.

What are the typical issues that you face when conducting investigations on corporate and personal insolvencies?

Investigations in insolvency proceedings are carried out for a number of reasons. Primarily, the purposes in both corporate and personal insolvencies is to identify and recover assets for the benefit of creditors. In addition, there are instances where insolvencies give rise to claims that can be pursued by insolvency practitioners where there has been wrongdoing. These claims are covered by both the Insolvency Act 1986 and the Companies Act 2006.

For corporate insolvencies, the actions of the directors in the period after the company became insolvent will also come under close scrutiny to establish whether they have acted in a way that has either enriched themselves or prejudiced the interests of creditors individually or collectively.

Investigating personal insolvencies is generally more challenging than for corporates. This is largely due to the lack of an audit trail for the affairs of an individual, which is often present, in one form or another, for a corporate.

Albeit it is a criminal offence if an individual fails to deliver up a full account of their affairs to the Official Receiver at the outset of a bankruptcy, there are often occasions where full disclosure has not been made. The insolvency practitioner will need to build up a picture of the person’s affairs either with, or sometimes without, the cooperation of the individual.

Not all individuals are fully cooperative with the proceedings, particularly if you are contemplating bringing proceedings for the recovery of assets they might have transferred to third parties before they were made bankrupt. There are sanctions available to deal with instances of a lack of cooperation with the use of court proceedings for interviews and the option to suspend the individual’s automatic discharge from bankruptcy proceedings being available. This does not however always achieve the desired outcome and some individuals can remain bankrupt for many years until they decide to cooperate.

The extent of any investigation will largely be determined by the level of the insolvency, the type of claims against the individual and also representations made by those creditors. If the information and representations provided by the directors or individual are considered reasonable, then investigations may be little more than routine searches. Conversely, if it is clear that the position as a whole just doesn’t stack up then it may lead to follow up detailed investigations which may include reconstructing accounts from incomplete company records, applications to court to deliver up information or even oral examinations.

Corporate investigations tend to have trail to follow and the starting point is a review of the statement of affairs of the company provided by the directors, and then comparing it to the last filed statutory accounts. This helps to assess what happened in the final period of trading and whether it supports the directors’ version of events.

Further review of the company’s books and records, back-ups of electronic data, information obtained from professional advisors and also representations made by the company’s management and its creditors should provide most of the answers. It is rarely the case that the company’s records are up-to-date and complete at the point of insolvency. We also consider whether management have any other entities trading that might suggest the company’s assets, both tangible and intangible, have been transferred.

With all corporate insolvencies, the key aspect is to establish when the company became insolvent and what happened in the period from that point through to the company entering an insolvency process.  There are two tests to establishing insolvency. The first is the cash flow test, which is the point at which the company could not pay its debts as and when they fall due. The second test is the balance sheet test. The point at which the company’s liabilities exceeded the value of its assets. Proving insolvency can sometimes be problematic but there will often be information available to be able to pin point an approximate date.

The next stage is determining what happened from that date through to the date of the insolvency. In essence, did management recognise that the company was insolvent and can we establish what steps were taken by management to address the decline. If no proactive steps were taken, the directors may well be liable but in all instances the evidence has to be clear and presented in a format that can be put before a court if an agreement cannot be reached on settlement.

Creditors’ expectations can be unrealistic and have a tendency to focus on self-interest. Managing those expectations at the outset can also influence the level of investigation work carried out. For larger assignments the formation of a creditors committee can be useful for the purposes of assisting with the understanding of the affairs of corporates.

With any investigation there has to be an element of proportionality and so a cost benefit analysis is always required. The insolvency practitioner has to consider whether detailed work will ultimately lead to a recovery for the benefit of the company’s creditors taking into consideration the costs that may arise from a recovery action by legal process which is always costly and risky. Furthermore by the very nature of the matter there may not be funds available initially to cover detailed investigation work so the insolvency practitioner needs to weigh up the risk of not being paid.

What are the most common tactics that you implement when assisting distressed corporations with restructuring?

Firstly you need to understand how much time you have to implement changes. Where time is short and directors have left it too long, to the point that creditors are threatening winding up, then an insolvency process may be necessary whereby the process is a precursor to restructuring the business operations.

Where circumstances are not quite so critical and you have more time, you need to assess how restructuring will be most effective and so a business review of current operations should be carried out. The level of detail of the review will depend upon the size and complexity of the company’s operations as well as the extent of the company’s current losses. The business review will cover an assessment of the past and current financial performance as well as an overview of the operational aspects of the business. It may also cover the strengths and weaknesses of existing management. The review will highlight the aspects of the business that are both good and bad, and will aid the formation of a number of strategies that should assist turnaround.

Typically the initial focus will be trying to return the company to profitability in the shortest possible time frame.

An assessment of how that will be achieved will be quantified in the business review following which a cost reduction programme and efficiency drive will be implemented. This is likely to include rationalisation of the workforce, as well as a review of the remuneration policy for management which may not be in keeping with financial performance. Those assets that, after review, are considered to be non-performing will be sold.

Sometimes less means more. Often management become obsessed with ever increasing turnover at the expense of profitability and so cutting high volume, low margin products can result in considerable cost savings and increased profitability. Pricing will also need to be assessed.

Over time management can lose focus. Furthermore, corporate governance is often lacking with distressed companies. A refocus of corporate strategy, financial budgets, cash flow projections and key performance indicators will be necessary to understand what is realistic in the short and medium term.

What is the likelihood of insolvency and restructuring processes that cannot save a company and what are the circumstances that typically lead to liquidation? How common are Company Voluntary Arrangements, Creditors Voluntary Liquidations and Members Voluntary Liquidations and how do you assist with them?

For any restructuring process you need the support of the stakeholders of the business, whether that be management, employees, banks, funders, customers and suppliers to effect change. Sometime despite best efforts of management and their advisors, external factors can undermine the restructuring process. An example of this would be the loss of a major contract or key members of staff, high exit costs of an unprofitable contract. These situations can make the company’s operations not financially viable whereby the only option will be to liquidate the company.

Company voluntary arrangements are a useful process where a company may have experienced a one off event such as a significant loss on a contract or a bad debt. Again viability is key to whether it is the correct procedure and also whether there is sufficient working capital to keep trading. There are also other factors to consider because a CVA can last up to 5 years. During that time the company’s credit rating will be recorded as poor meaning that it will have a knock on effect to securing new contracts.

Creditors Voluntary Liquidations form the majority of work for insolvency firms. The process appropriate for directors to wind up failing companies before it reaches a stage of creditors taking their own enforcement action with winding up petitions.

Members voluntary liquidations (MVL’s) apply to solvent companies and are a tax efficient way of winding up a company that has reached the end of its useful life and has surplus capital to return to shareholders. Where the company is not part of a group, by using this process, it gives rise to lower tax for the shareholders and also the option, should the criteria be met, to claim Entrepreneur’s Relief. For group companies the MVL process can end unnecessary administration of maintaining compliance.

The MVL process is very common. With most instructions of this nature timing is very important, particularly with owner managed businesses.

For more information, please go to: http://www.quantuma.com/

Ben Rhodes is a Director at Grant Thornton, Channel Islands. He is a Chartered Accountant, UK Licensed Insolvency Practitioner, Certified Fraud Examiner and qualified Trust and Estates Practitioner. He has specialised in the areas of restructuring, insolvency and forensic investigations since 2003, helping company directors, creditors and other stakeholders. He began his career in London before moving to the Channel Islands in 2012.

 Grant Thornton has the largest single dedicated recovery and reorganisation practice in the Channel Islands, with three UK Licensed Insolvency Practitioners supported by a team of experienced accountants and fraud examiners. Here Ben tells Finance Monthly more about the insolvency and restructuring processes in the Channel Islands and specifically Guernsey, as well as what makes him a thought leader in the sector.

What are currently the hottest topics being discussed in relation to insolvency and restructuring trends in the Channel Islands?

The concept of “Insolvent Trusts” has gained much attention in the Channel Islands in the last couple of years and remains a hot topic now.

It is debatable whether a Trust can become “insolvent”, as it does not have its own separate legal personality. However, a Jersey ruling in 2015 in Re Z Trust has helped provide clarification. This matter concerned a Trust that had insufficient assets to meet its liabilities, as they fell due and was therefore insolvent on a cash-flow basis. The Court recognised that it was incorrect to describe the Trust as “insolvent”, however acknowledged that the terminology was helpful in ascertaining how the Trust should be treated and the duties of the Trustee.

The Z Trust ruling is helpful, however there remain problems to be overcome. There is no insolvency regime in place in respect of Trusts and therefore, no clear remedy for creditors and other stakeholders. This lack of regime results in additional cost. Furthermore, there is difficulty finding a replacement for the incumbent Trustee in these situations.

Which sectors would you say are faced with insolvency and restructuring proceedings more than others in Guernsey?

As expected of an International Finance Centre, we deal with a significant volume of solvent restructuring matters in relation to Trust and Fund structures in Guernsey. These structures have typically come to the end of their useful life and are therefore being wound down. The structures often include entities in various jurisdictions such as Luxembourg, Cayman, BVI and Bahamas, as well as the UK and therefore, we work closely with our international Grant Thornton colleagues. We also work very closely with our tax colleagues in relation to these matters as decisions are often driven by tax considerations.

Do you see any need for legislative change regarding insolvency in Guernsey?

Guernsey is currently embarking on a reform of its commercial and personal insolvency legislation. I was engaged in 2016 by the States of Guernsey to assist with the changes and to provide recommendations on the proposed law reform.

The first phase of the reform is anticipated to include the introduction of insolvency rules; a requirement for independent office holders in an insolvent voluntary winding up; greater consultation with creditors in an insolvent winding up; and greater powers for office holders to obtain information from directors and officers.

These changes will make the insolvency regime far more robust and will enhance Guernsey’s reputation as a safe place to do business.

You have worked on numerous high profile cases in the Channel Islands and the UK - what has been your flagship piece of work in recent years and how did you apply particular thought leadership to this scenario? (94)

We continue to be busy with regulatory and insolvency investigations in the Channel Islands. Our clients may include Trust or underlying entities that have been the victim of fraud; or beneficiaries and investors seeking compensation.

Our forensic investigation work may include isolating and quantifying the fraud, interviewing suspects and witnesses, gathering and preserving digital and other evidence and working with the legal teams to pursue prosecution.

Our in-house Business Advisory and Compliance teams also assist clients with putting processes and safeguards in place to reduce the risk of fraud occurring in the first place.

As a thought leader in this segment, how are you developing new strategies and ways to help your clients?

 As a member of the Association of Restructuring and Insolvency Experts (ARIES) Legal and Regulatory Committee, I have been assisting with the implementation of Guernsey Insolvency Practice Statements (GIPS). These will help to provide best practice guidance to practitioners in Guernsey, in advance of the law reform. The GIPS will cover such practical areas as conducting investigations, reporting on director conduct, the holding of creditors’ meetings and pre-packaged sales of business through Administration.

The GIPS are expected to be released within the following two months. ARIES has also begun drafting Jersey Insolvency Practice Statements (JIPS) to offer similar guidance to Jersey practitioners.