These are just some of the recent assignments we have undertaken. They provide a flavour of our work and how we do it.
Retail expertise
Moore Stephens is acting as administrators of The Readers Digest Association Limited, following the recent decision by the UK Pensions Regulator that it would not support an agreement between the company, the trustees of its pension scheme and the UK Pension Protection Fund to settle a longstanding pension scheme liability.
After the collapse of the international Woolworths retail chain, Moore Stephens was appointed administrators of the UK holding group for the Woolworths businesses in Germany and Austria. In Germany, the business is subject to local insolvency proceedings. The Austrian operation, which was solvent, was sold as a going concern to a local retail group.
Moore Stephens also applied its retail expertise when acting as administrators of Atkins Nutritionals (United Kingdom) Ltd, which developed and marketed the Atkins range of food supplements and nutritional products. The administrators completed a restructuring of the European subsidiary operations, while maintaining continuity of supply across Europe and selling substantial stocks through high street outlets. Moore Stephens then achieved the sale of the UK and continental European divisions.
International asset tracing
Moore Stephens achieved a 100% payout for creditors of AY Bank Limited, a UK-incorporated Yugoslavian-owned bank with an £80m loan book, whose assets were frozen by sanctions when it was deemed by the US and the EC to be connected with the Milosevic regime. Initially appointed as administrators in 1999, Moore Stephens continued trading the bank for four years to protect the loan book. However, by the time sanctions were lifted, the bank’s rescue was no longer possible and in 2003 Moore Stephens was appointed to handle its liquidation. However, the firm’s efforts to trace and realise worldwide assets in multiple jurisdictions has resulted in a full payout to unsecured creditors, with possible further payments of accrued interest to come.
Solvent winding down
Moore Stephens is acting for numerous international groups domiciled in various jurisdictions on the winding down of UK and European subsidiaries as part of a solvent group reorganisation.
We are, for example, advising the management of former electrical giant Thorn Limited on the winding down of the group following its acquisition by Pension Corporation Investments. We are overseeing a staged programme of placing subsidiaries into members voluntary liquidation as and when potential lease liabilities are resolved. We are also handling the MVL of the English and Irish subsidiaries of Enron, the collapsed US-based energy trader. Moore Stephens is dealing with a number of contingent liabilities before completing the solvent liquidation process.
Cross-jurisdictional and industry specific
As court-appointed receivers over cargoes and receivables of Metro Trading International Inc, a Middle East-based oil trader with an asset value of US$75m, we encountered many complex cross-jurisdictional and industry specific matters and drew on our shipping industry expertise. Our London-based experts made full use of Moore Stephens International, working with member firms in Oman, Greece and Hong Kong to address issues in the United Arab Emirates, the Far East, Liberia, France and the UK. We successfully concluded an extended arbitration relating to US$20m owing for shipments of oil.
International market
Examples of the international assignments we have undertaken include:
financial advisors to an official creditors’ committee in Chapter 11 proceedings of a gas transport group, including advising on the committee’s reorganisation plan which was confirmed by the court;
- receivers appointed by the High Court in the British Virgin Islands in connection with a dispute over the ownership of a Russian mobile phone network;
- receivers of a Norwegian-owned Boeing 767, financed through institutions in New York and London and leased to a New Zealand-based airline;
- receivers appointed by the English High Court in relation to grain cargoes destined from Thailand and Turkey for delivery to Iraq on board vessels originally from Vietnam, Turkey and Greece.
Confidential restructuring
Moore Stephens is advising a number of major corporations, both UK and multinational groups, on the development and implementation of restructuring plans. Such activity is triggered in some cases by the challenging economic climate, as well as by particular pressures such as pension liabilities and refinancing needs. In some circumstances, restructuring will lead to a formal insolvency procedure, though this is not always necessary.
Unauthorised investment scheme
Moore Stephens has been handling the liquidation of Rubicon Estates, a landbank investment scheme. Land considered potentially ripe for residential development was acquired by the company, then divided into lots and sold to investors. However, Rubicon was forced to cease trading after the Financial Services Authority determined it was a collective investment scheme and should have been authorised by the FSA.
Rubicon attracted about 800 investors, resulting in a huge volume of claims for compensation. Following its appointment, Moore Stephens sold on remaining plots, enabled the completion of all the land transfers and set up new management companies to handle common parts.
Going concern sale
In 2009 Moore Stephens were appointed administrators of Kent Sweepers, whose business included the supply on long-term hire contracts of road sweepers and forklift vehicles, and a commercial decorating division. Based in Rochester, the company operated around the country from a number of regional depots. Its specific business model was badly hit by the recession, due to the significant drop in the residual value of the company’s vehicles and subsequent fall in book profits on their sale.
Moore Stephens sought to achieve the maximum recovery for creditors by way of a going concern sale of two business divisions, saving in excess of 100 jobs, and through the sale of the remaining road sweeper fleet.
Long-running insurance claims
In Glasgow, Moore Stephens has become the latest firm to take on the Official Liquidator role in relation to Upper Clyde Shipbuilders Limited in whose shipyards the QE2 was once built. Although a winding up order was made against the company back in 1971, the Official Liquidator has an ongoing role in facilitating the serving of legal actions and insurance claims for asbestos-related diseases against the company’s former insurers, themselves now insolvent.
Moore Stephens has been involved in the claims of over 500 former employees of the shipbuilder. This number is expected to increase dramatically following a failed attempt to stop the Scottish Parliament overturning a House of Lords decision to end compensation for those exposed to asbestos and suffering from pleural plaques.
Realising assets
Moore Stephens have been handling the administration of BMH Construction, a design and build contractor based in Bedford and employing around 65 staff. A combination of factors, including postponed projects due to the recession, heavy snow and cancelled contracts, created insurmountable cashflow problems. Once the company entered administration in 2009, Moore Stephens began actively working to realise assets with a view to delivering a dividend for unsecured creditors.