King & Wood Mallesons has market-leading restructuring and insolvency expertise. Our dedicated Restructuring & Insolvency Team, as part of our broader Professional Services focus, comprises specialists from across our market leading Banking & Finance, Dispute Resolution, Mergers & Acquisitions and Tax practices, and some of the best “pure” insolvency experts in Australia.

Our team members have worked with creditors, receivers, scheme trustees, liquidators and administrators on all aspects of insolvency administrations. They have also acted for banks in workouts and enforcement of securities, advising on all aspects of banking and insolvency law. The impact of the credit crunch followed by the global financial crisis has continued to play out in Australia over the last 12 months, driving significant activity in the restructuring and insolvency space, including:

• the continued development of the secondary market in distressed debt, with a greater focus on trading loans on specific deals rather than on a portfolio basis (and an upswing in credit fund and hedge fund involvement), and a significantly greater appetite of debt holders to trade out of their positions than they had only 18 months ago;

• King & Wood Mallesons have acted for many buyers (both in relation to relevant Australian laws and also their strategic options in relation to the asset) and sellers of debt assets

• distressed corporate restructurings and pre-insolvency workouts, particularly in the property, retail and infrastructure space and those sectors affected by natural disasters;

• King & Wood Mallesons acted for a wide range of private equity firms, corporates and financiers and other creditors during a period marked by sharp contractions in liquidity and business confidence, including Catalyst on the Valley Longwall Mining Services Group debt restructuring and sale, and a number of Boards of distressed companies as to their position and options

• the complex restructurings of managed investment schemes (the regulated form of trust) following the collapse of those schemes;
• a greater number of agricultural and infrastructure schemes were affected during this period, such as the Rivercity Motorway Group Administration, on which King & Wood Mallesons advised
  
• the commencement of a number of regulatory actions by ASIC and liquidators as a result of previous large corporate collapses such as Octaviar and ABC Learning Group, as well as a number of class actions funded by litigation funders;
  
• work following collapses in the property industry;
• King & Wood Mallesons’ team assisted on the Hilton Project, the Oracle Project and a review of the new Soul Project
  
• restructuring and enforcement activity as a consequence of stresses in the retail sector, with collapses of retail chains such as Borders, Tom Browns Menswear and the Colorado Group; and
  
• the establishment of specialist credit and distressed debt funds and other vehicles for the acquisition of distressed debt and distressed assets, or the creation of synthetic exposures to such assets, and the development and implementation of other structures for investors to take an exposure to debt positions.
  

The last 12 months also featured the most complex restructuring in Australian corporate history: the Alinta Energy deleveraging transaction. King & Wood Mallesons advised Alinta Energy on this ground breaking deal. The Alinta Energy deleveraging transaction involved innovative restructuring techniques developed by our team. A transaction of this size and complexity demanded a team of specialists from across our banking, funds, trusts and capital markets teams, to support and work seamlessly with our insolvency and restructuring experts. It also required a team who had a wider understanding of the energy sector developed through deep relationships with some of Australia’s largest energy and resources companies.